Welcome

...to the 100th edition of Stephen Tweed's Leading Home Care Report. This special report is for CEOs and senior executives of America's leading home care companies. This report is published every other Wednesday by Leading Home Care ... a Tweed Jeffries company for our clients, friends, and advocates who want to grow their home care businesses.

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What a journey it has been!

We can reflect back on all that has happened in those 200 weeks. But more important is to look ahead to anticipate what is coming in the future.

As a home care leader, your primary job is to create a more favorable future for your patients and clients, for your employees, and for your community. Our job is to help you do that. In the next few issues, we'll be looking ahead to help you anticipate the changes that are coming, and how you can think and plan strategically to create a more favorable future for your agency.

Here are the steps you need to take at this time of year to make sure you are ready for what the future brings in 2007.

1. Assess Your Current Reality

December is a great time to review the results of 2006, check in with your home care team, and create a snapshot of your agency as it exists today. There are four levels of assessing your current reality:

A. An Intuitive Check
"How are you feeling about your home care company right now?"
"What are you most excited about?"
"What frustrates you most?"

B. An Anecdotal Check
"What are our major accomplishments in 2006?"
"What are people saying about our company?"
"What evidence do we have of our competitive advantage in the marketplace?"

C. A Quantitative Check
"What do the numbers tell us about our business this year?"
"Are our admissions up, down, or about the same?"
"What is our total number of patients served?"
"What is our average revenue per episode?"
"What are our quality scores?"
"What are our revenues and profits compared to last year?"

2. Look at the Forces and Trends shaping our industry

Forces are the pressures that cause change. Trends are the patterns of change that happen as a result of the forces. There are five major forces affecting the home care industry. What do you see happening in your marketplace in each of these areas?

A. Economic Forces - What's happening in the economy that is affecting your company? There has never been a better time economically for home care in America than in 2006. What do you see happening in 2007? Will the home care economy get better or worse?

B. Demographic Change - What's happening demographically in your marketplace? The biggest demographic shift we see that is affecting home care is the growing number of Hispanic-Americans in our communities. What else is affecting your business?

C. Consumer Choice - Consumer choice is having a huge impact on home care. Patients and their families are much more aware of home care than ever before. The fastest growing segment of healthcare in America is non-medical, private pay home care. How is this affecting your company?

D. Technology - How is technology affecting your agency? Are you automating your business as rapidly as you should be? What % of your budget is being spent on updating and operating your information systems?

E. Political Change - For the past decade, the political pendulum has been swinging from left to right. The November election saw the control of Congress go back to the Democratic Party. What does that mean for home care? What does that mean for your local community?

3. Describe Your Desired Future

Now's the time to review your Mission, Vision, and Values. What do you want the future of your home care company to be? Have you clearly articulated your purpose for being? Your vision for the future? The values that guide your thoughts and actions?

4. Create Competitive Advantage in Your Marketplace

How are you doing competitively? Are you getting your fair share of the referrals that turn into admissions? If not, why not? What are you doing to differentiate your company from your competitors?

5. Develop your Strategic Action Plan

You've probably heard me tell the story in my seminars about the woman who stood up during a discussion about Vision and said, "Vision without action is hallucination." And then another guy said, "Yes, but action without vision is chaos and confusion."

In our home care companies, we want neither hallucination or confusion. We want focused action that creates competitive advantage in the marketplace and helps us grow our businesses.

Do you have a clearly defined strategic action plan with strategic initiatives, goals, action steps, target dates, and resources allocated? Do you have a system to monitor your implementation and hold team members accountable?

6. Measure Performance

The one thing I've learned that has been most valuable for me over these past 200 weeks is the importance and value of having a Strategic Scorecard to measure the success of your company. I've insisted that each of my Planning & Coaching clients sends me their scorecard every month, and we've seen some amazing results in improved performance. What are you doing to measure the performance of your company and share the results with your leadership team?

Now's the time to review each of these six steps, and answer the questions I've raised. If I can help, give me a call.

If you are looking for an amazing trip that will take you back in time, allow you to experience a wondrous part of the world, and enjoy the company of some other passionate people, you'll want to join us for The Journeys of Paul and John.

You'll experience:

• A visit to the Acropolis and the Parthenon in Athens
• Corinth, the capital of the Roman province and the city of Paul's extensive personal ministry and challenging letter writing
• Meteora, which lies amid striking mountain scenery
• Berea, visited by Paul, to see the excavations of the ancient Jewish community
• Thessaloniki, where Paul preached and wrote the early letters to the Macedonians
• Philippi, where Paul and Silas preached for the first time in Europe and were imprisoned
• The Gangites River, where Lydia and other early Christians were baptized
• Ephesus, where Paul spent two years; John wrote the Book of Revelation to the churches there
• The Basilica of St. John and see the great theatre where the Ephesians screamed against Paul
• and end the journey in Istanbul, and at the headquarters of the Byzantine empire.

For more information on The Journeys of Paul and John, download the brochure below, or call Elizabeth at 502-339-1600 to discuss this amazing opportunity with her.

See the Itinerary for The Journey of Paul and John

If you were to purchase all of our marketing products at full retail price, you'd pay well over $2,000 for them.

Because we want you to grow your business more quickly, we've put together a special "value pack" of some of our programs. This Mega Marketing Power Pack contains:

• One Soft Cover Book on Home Care Marketing
• One Manual on Home Care Sales & Marketing
• 12 Audio CDs totaling more than 14 hours of content
• Over 50 pages of support materials for the audio learning programs
• Our Lunch 'N Learn Facilitator's Guide
• Continuing Education Contact Hours for nurses and other professionals

The retail price of this powerful package is $1,734. As a faithful reader of this newsletter, we want to give you an opportunity to provide this valuable information to your sales and marketing team for the low price of only $999 a savings of $735 - Such a Deal!

Purchase this Power Pack today, and we'll add an Audio Teleseminar CD, "Building Relationships with Physicians Office Staff" with Stephen Tweed and M. Tray Dunaway, MD. This is a $149 value for you at no extra cost.

Order the Mega Marketing Power Pack Online Today!

The Academy for Private Duty Home Care

Thursday, November 30, 2006
Indianapolis, IN
Holiday Inn North at the Pyramids

Sponsored by:
Indiana Association for Home & Hospice Care
Michigan Home Health Association
Illinois Home Care Council
National Private Duty Association
Ohio Council for Home Care

The Academy for Home Care Leadership, Executive Institute

Tuesday, December 5, 2006
Holiday Inn Executive Center
Columbia, MO
Sponsored by:
the Missouri Alliance for Home Care

Please support your state and national associations by participating in these and other conferences featuring Stephen Tweed and members of the Leading Home Care Team.

Stephen is a past-President of the National Speakers Association, a 3500 member international society of experts who speak professionally. He is also the father of a 37 year-old son who is physically disabled and uses the services of home care on a daily basis.

Meet the entire Leading Home Care Team