By Suzanne Schmidt
Staff Writer
Right at Home, an in-home care service, received The Joint Commission’s Golden Seal of Approval in January.
The seal is internationally recognized as a symbol of quality that reflects a commitment to meeting the safest and highest quality of performance standards.
The accreditation is something the owner Tino Suarez decided to do because he wants to ensure he is providing the best quality to his clients.
“It guarantees quality and safety,” Suarez said. “There are 400 Right at Home offices throughout the U.S. and we are the second to have the accreditation, that is how important it is to me.”
Suarez said he is in the business to help people. The Plant City-based business provides services to Zephyrhills, Dade City, Wesley Chapel, New Tampa and Tampa. Most of the people the company helps have either dementia, Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease.
“The first thing we do is an assessment,” Suarez said. “We have an office manager who will visit the person at home at no cost. We define what the client needs.”
The service is provided from as little as four hours a day to 24 hours a day seven days a week.
According to Suarez, there are two kinds of in-home care. There are the registries and there are the companies like his that have all their caregivers as employees.
“All my caregivers are licensed, insured and bonded,” Suarez said. “We do rigorous background checks so that we make sure the person we have coming into people’s homes are safe. All our caregivers have to do monthly studies to keep up with their certifications.”
The two types of care the service provides are companion and personal.
Through the companion care, clients receive help with meal preparation, shopping, running errands, light housekeeping and supervision.
The personal care is more medical where clients receive help with transfers, positioning, taking vitals, skin care, ambulation and toileting.
“Improving the quality of life, that is what it is about,” Suarez said.
Suarez was inspired to start the in-home care business because he had to put his mother Mimi Suarez in a nursing home.
“My mother needed assistance and I was working full-time,” Suarez said. “I was trying to sandwich my life between work and taking care of my parents and my family. I relied on the nurse who told me to put her in assisted living. It would have been a big help if I would have known about in-home care.”
Suarez said he is always trying to make sure his clients are well taken care of.
“Every week the office manager here writes a report,” Suarez said. “We try to put a human value to it. It is more than a business to me.”
In order to make sure the families are receiving the help they need, Saurez said he makes sure someone is answering the phone all day everyday.
“We do not have an answering service,” Suarez said. “We make sure there is a real person answering the phone 24/7. If someone is calling their mother and she is not answering, they can call us to send over a caregiver. You can’t put a price on that level of care.”
Kristen Devane, caregiver, said she likes to help people out.
“I assist where I am needed,” Devane said. “I will move a hot pot for them or reach up high for an item for them. I do whatever she needs to have done.”
Ann Ravnikar of Plant City enjoys the help she receives from Devane.
“Everything she does is just great,” Ravnikar said. “She helps us with the cooking and the cleaning. She also will go to the grocery store or pick up my prescriptions.”
For more information, call (813) 764-9290 or visit www.right-at-home-pc.com.
