Page 49 - BusinessWest December 22, 2021

The office staff at HomeCare Hands, which has branched out beyond home care and become a staffing agency for hospitals and other facilities as well.
anything,” she said. “Since then, we’ve built on that success and haven’t stopped.”
These days, HomeCare Hands boasts more than 200 caregivers and employees. Headquar- tered in Springfield, the agency has offices in Northampton, Greenfield, Boston, and Hartford, with coverage extending to communities sur- rounding those locations.
While providing caregivers for the home remains its core business, HomeCare Hands has also branched out as a staffing agency for hos- pitals, assisted-living communities, and other medical facilities.
The arrival of the pandemic aggravated an already-challenging situation with healthcare
staffing.
“We saw the needs during the worst of the
pandemic and asked how we could help,” said Angie Thornton, marketing coordinator for HomeCare Hands. “The answer was to do some- thing about the lack of staff in all these facilities.”
Achieving this level of growth, diversity, and reputation within a highly competitive market has not come easily. Overall, Holloman attributes the company’s success to going the extra mile when it comes to helping the caregivers they hire — quite literally, as we’ll see — and finding creat- ing ways to meet client needs.
“We know this is more than a business — these are lives we’re responsible for,” she said.
“We come to work to take care of folks and to make sure caregivers and clients alike are getting what they need.”
At Home with the Idea
It was not so long ago that Holloman devel- oped a formal business plan for HomeCare Hands and faced constant rejection from banks and other avenues of funding.
“As a result, we have no government contracts, and we have no debt,” she said. “We have no back-up plan, and we run on grit.”
It was with this grit and that aforementioned passion for working with seniors that Holloman started her business from a small office on Main Street in Springfield in 2015. After a number of years, as the business grew, she moved to new quarters on State Street. In October, HomeCare Hands took over a larger space that she knows is already too small for their future plans.
“We’re now looking for our own building,” she said. “We need the extra space because we con- tinue to grow and we are hoping to open a CNA training school in 2022.”
How HomeCare Hands has grown so quickly and profoundly is an intriguing business story, one about a company adapting to meet merging needs and diversifying to find new ways to not only generate revenue, but serve seniors and area healthcare providers.
And in many ways, the company has the right services at the right time.
Indeed, demand for in-home senior services has seen huge growth simply because of demo-
Home
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