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This article was originally published in Franchising Magazine USA.
Ignacio Cespedes, PhD, Owner of BrightStar Care of Roseville and Sacramento/Carmichael
Fifteen years ago, I was introduced to the world of franchising when BrightStar Care, a nationwide home care franchise, reached out to me with a franchise opportunity. Before starting my career as a franchise owner, I worked in the healthcare industry for 12 years and was the Chief Operating Officer for a medical device company, but I was eager to begin the next phase of my career. Although I had no previous franchise experience, I leaped at the opportunity of merging my passion of working in the growing healthcare industry, with my desire to become my own boss.
Having never considered the route of franchising before, I strategically weighed my options and discovered franchising is truly for everyone, at all levels of the professional spectrum from college graduates to executives and retirees. I came to the field of home care franchising with an MBA and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering, however regardless of your professional background, franchising can be a smart investment for anyone interested in pursuing entrepreneurship. With the senior population growing quickly as baby boomers age into the category, the demand for businesses like home care is rapidly increasing. The great thing about investing in a franchise is that the franchisor has already laid a strong foundation for the brand and it is much easier to create a stable business than if you started a business from scratch. In honor of my fifteen-year anniversary milestone with BrightStar Care, I’m here to share my firsthand experience as a seasoned franchise owner and how my franchise business has helped serve my community at large.
Since the opening of my BrightStar Care agency, my talented healthcare field team has provided more than 1.7 million hours of service to the communities across Placer County and Sacramento County. I have also employed nearly 2,000 team members and my agency has served almost 2,500 clients. My team’s true dedication to care has allowed us to continue to provide the highest level of personalized service to our community for the last 15 years. At BrightStar Care of Roseville and Sacramento/Carmichael, we are passionate about providing a higher standard of care for our clients. While we serve community members of all ages, we have a large number of clients within the senior and veteran populations. We offer all our clients a highly personalized, compassionate approach to care and specialize in dementia and Parkinson’s care, supporting the seniors and their families in our community. Each client that we take on receives a personalized care plan with continuous oversight by a Registered Nurse who visits the client in the comfort of their own home. We also provide home health services which includes infusions, wound care, and physical therapy, as well as medical staffing services to healthcare facilities.
In addition to the outstanding care that we provide our clients, we are very involved with our community and passionate about providing resources through community support groups, seminars, and training. We hold several support group meetings monthly that are open to the community for families and those impacted by Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, or dementia, those seeking senior care assistance, and learn more about the disease process. In these groups, people can share their experiences, provide support to one another, share resources, and more. We also host events at our agency, where clients, their family members, and community members can stop by our office to listen to seminars from expert speakers in the medical field. We often bring in specialized doctors and medical professionals to speak about the aging process, home care, and senior care, and we hold question-and-answer panels, so audience members have the floor to ask any questions they need. Although our clients and their family members widely participate in these events, these services are open to the community and people do not have to be BrightStar Care clients to attend. We found these conversations and events help introduce the community to the benefits of aging in place with the assistance of home care and how it can help improve the lives of their aging loved ones.
Our long-term care insurance seminars are some of our most attended events, as we help the public understand their long-term care insurance benefits and what kind of care they can receive under their plan. These benefit plans can be confusing, especially for the senior community. During our seminars, we help people understand their policies, review how to initiate claims, coach them on how to maximize their benefits, and answer any additional questions.
In order to maintain our top-tier level of service, we offer several educational programs and training for our own staff and other medical professionals in the community. We are also certified trainers for the Virtual Dementia Tour, a training program that simulates the experience of a person living with dementia and what it is like to complete everyday tasks and exercises. The caregivers can experience for themselves the physical and mental challenges those with dementia face on a daily basis and use the experience to provide better person-focused care with true empathy towards their clients. We also offer this training to other local healthcare professionals and to families taking care of loved ones with dementia. While the industry has been facing a healthcare staffing crisis, throughout our 15 years of operation, we have maintained stable staffing levels by prioritizing education, training and maintaining high standards.
Looking ahead, I am hopeful for what the next 15 years will bring and how we can continue to improve the lives of our clients and their families, while simultaneously giving back to the community and providing our talented caregivers, nurses, and therapists a valuable career path. I have witnessed firsthand the many benefits of opening a home care franchise, and I am deeply passionate about the industry and providing the highest quality of care to my clients. For those passionate about caring for others or providing an essential service in their community, a home care franchise is a rewarding career investment.