New Home Care Model Brings Service to the Neighborhood

Vivia care model assigns one care team for clients who live in close proximity, enabling more care to more senior citizens.

A new home care model where one caregiver serves a group of clients who live within a close geographic neighborhood is helping to solve staffing challenges while saving money for the client.

The new care model—called Vivia—assigns a client to an assistant and team leader who serve them along with a group of clients who live within close proximity, according to a company press release.

The new model, which has been operating in Hawaii for two years, is now available in Olympia, Washington through a partnership between ABOVE Home Health and Vivia Cares, Inc.

This model enables the client to receive consistent, frequent, and shorter visits—even several times a day—by the same Vivia assistant without having to purchase minimum hours, the company says.

Traditional home care models could not meet community requests for shorter, more frequent visits, said Natalya Rubel, chief executive officer of ABOVE Home Health.

“Now, with Vivia, we are excited to begin offering frequent, shorter visits by a consistent caregiver, which half of our clients have been requesting,” she said.

Vivia clients get a consistent caregiver who helps with various homecare tasks and provides social engagement. There are no minimum hours required and families develop a close working relationship with their neighborhood Vivia assistant, the company says.

The new model is expected to help with Washington’s growing aging population.

The state’s 65+ residents are projected to at least double from 2010 (828,000) to 2040 (1,995,000), with gains of 40,000 per year expected through 2028, according to the most recent Washington State Plan on Aging report.

The available workforce is not able to meet the expected demands under current models, the report says. Introducing the Vivia model to Washington allows ABOVE Home Health to meet the community’s needs by serving many more seniors, as well as offering direct-care workers a new way to work, the company says.

“Vivia’s innovative model not only transforms the experience for seniors,” said Dew-Anne Langcaon, Vivia’s chief executive officer, “but also transforms the job for caregivers by offering higher wages, guaranteed hours, and a company car for transportation to attract Vivia assistants, thus making services much more readily available to many seniors.”