Ho‘okele Home Care is among Hawai‘i home care agencies recently recognized in Activated Insights' Best of Home Care Awards.
The annual awards "shine a spotlight on home care agencies that go above and beyond for both their caregivers and their clients," the independent home care industry association's website notes.
Ho‘okele, a Honolulu-based in-home care provider founded in 2006, received three honors: Provider of Choice, Employer of Choice and Leader in Training. Its Maui office also received the Provider of Choice and Leader in Training recognition.
Tanya Fernandes, CEO of Ho‘okele Home Care, told Aloha State Daily earlier this month that the national award is based on independent surveys of clients and caregivers.
Other Hawai‘i agencies were also recognized.
Griswold Home Care for O‘ahu, BrightStar Care and Right at Home were named Employer of Choice; Griswold and Right at Home were named Provider of Choice. Find the full list of winners here.
Ho‘okele sends caregivers into individuals' homes to provide non-medical, caregiving services that could include tasks light housekeeping, meal preparation, showers and assistance with other daily activities, Fernandes says.
According to Fernandes, Ho‘okele started with a traditional model of care, which provides care for clients who need help from 4 to 24 hours, and also developed a task- and outcomes-based home care model, Vivia, which offers services in shorter shifts.
When asked what the recognition means, Fernandes spoke about the Vivia model, which she says was started to address the caregiver shortage.
"We changed the way that we deliver the care and for us, this award represents that this new way of trying to deliver care, of trying to better support and do better jobs for our caregivers is something that is working and at least tells us, we're never going to be done, but we're at least on the right track."
The need for caregivers continues as Hawai‘i's population continues to age.
According to a 2024 report on "Aging and Hawai‘i's Generational Economy" from the University of Hawai‘i Economic Research Organization, or UHERO, one in four people in Hawai‘i will be 65 or older by 2035.
"That's a significant portion of our population," Fernandes says. "Then you put that together with ... a workforce shortage of caregivers, that's kind of the perfect storm for what's going on right now. We ourselves, we're facing that."
That's how Ho‘okele began offering a different care model, she says, "because we were literally, every single day, turning away clients."
Fernandes says that a little more than 20% of Hawai‘i adults are family caregivers as well, and many of those adult family caregivers also hold jobs.
"They are taking care of their parents or grandparents. They are holding jobs and in some situations, they're also taking care of kids — their own families," she says. "There's a lot that they have to manage.
"Caregiving is important. Sometimes the care that we can do or other agencies can do can be, again, these long hours, but a lot of times, what we're finding, is a lot of the adult children that we talk to, they want to help. They want to take care of Mom and Dad, and not only that, Mom and Dad want their kids to be the ones that are helping take care of them. We're finding that in our Vivia model, which is the short visits that we're doing, we're able to help that population."
When asked about the economics of caregiving, Fernandes says on the business side for caregivers, the company has found that this model of care has been "attractive to caregivers."
"One of the biggest issues and one of the biggest reasons why we developed this model is because of the caregiver shortage and just the enormous demand for caregivers," she says. "We needed to basically figure out ... how to attract more people to become caregivers and then how to retain them as well, because they're so important. The job that they do is so important."
With the Vivia model, caregivers are given a full-time schedule and provided a company car.
In early April, Fernandes said the agency had about 100 caregivers on O‘ahu and Maui, with about 40 caregivers in the Vivia model. With the traditional model, where caregivers cover longer shifts, they're typically assigned to two clients, but the short shifts under the Vivia model, where caregivers are assigned to neighborhoods, means caregivers can see 15 to 20 clients.
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Stephanie Salmons can be reached at stephanie@alohastatedaily.com.
