Welcome

It is amazing that 50+ year old Americans are only 12% of the total population, but represented 1/5 of the total U.S. spending in 2005. Over time, that particular segment of the population is expected to spend more for travel and health care. The a ging Baby Boomers currently account for more than half of all health care spending in the United States.( 4) Statistics show that “another boomer reaches the big Five-O every seven seconds”. (4)

With all those statistics in mind, there are not enough homecare providers nor other health professionals to fill the coming demand required in the workforce. In 2003, there were 2.4 million direct-care workers caring for the nations’ more fragile citizens. However the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates 828,000 more positions will be emerge by 2012. (2) Homecare providers deliver a wide variety of services from professional nursing to personal care of clients with bathing, taking medication, home cleaning and monitoring health. (1) The first homecare providers got their start in the late 1800’s in the United States and number more than 20,000 today. (3)

Homecare can be tailored to meet the individual’s needs and may be an alternative to expensive stays in hospitals or skilled care facilities. Familiarity and patient comfort are the best arguments for homecare even if the household has been equipped appropriately. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, pay for home services is low to average with earnings ranging from $12,000 to $24,000 for experienced nursing assistants/home health aides. According to a Denver Post article, local pay averages $7.25 to $8.50 hourly but even so, it may be a field that is appealing as workers come from a family care-giving experience. (5)

1. Help Wanted: Home Health, bizjournal, 14 April 2000, http://twincities.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/2000/04/17/focus1.html 2. http://www.directcareclearinghouse.org/download/
NCDCW_0904_Fact_Sheet.pd
3. http://www.nahc.org/Consumer/hcstats.html
4. http://money.cnn.com/2005/03/25/pf/boomers1_0504/
5. http://www.postnewsads.com/linda/new/viewarticles.asp?articleID=37
6. http://www.aahomecare.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=18

Perry Byers and Judy Johnson

Industry Snapshot: Home Health Care

Take a look at our full industry report on Home Health Care (PDF Format). If you are interested in other industry snapshots, visit our SBDC Counselors Toolkit.

Links of Interest

Caregivers and Public Policy - http://ltc.georgetown.edu/pdfs/caregiversfriedland.pdf

Long Term Care Workers - http://aspe.hhs.gov/daltcp/reports/ltcwork.htm

Stay At Home Methods - http://www.ncoa.org//content.cfm?sectionID=250

State of Aging and Health - http://www.cdc.gov/aging/pdf/State_of_Aging_and_Health_in_America_2004.pdf

65+ in the United States : 2005 - http://www.nia.nih.gov

National Association for Home Care and Hospice - http://www.nahc.org/aboutus.html

Did You Know?

The most recent contribution to Business Advisors’ Toolkit came from the great state of Illinois. You might take a look at the Toolkit at http://sbdcnet.utsa.edu/docx/tools.htm. The toolkit was originally created to support the daily operational needs of SBDC business advisors. Over the years, many within the SBDC staff have contributed information and ideas for sharing with colleagues. Such contributions include checklists, surveys, formulas, etc.

The driver in this information gathering concept is to improve advisor efficiency, share ideas, and improve the expertise of SBDC business assistance.

Please consider submitting one or more of your successful ideas or resources to share with the SBDC network of business advisors. Submit your contribution to www.sbdcnet.utsa.edu

Are You Paying Attention to
Demographic Trends?

Every retail business is concerned with the demographics of their respective target population. Understanding the ideal customer, where it is located and how to reach out to them is vital to the success of the business. An important, yet sometimes overlooked, dataset is crime. Areas with high crime indices impact small businesses directly in many levels.

At the SBDCNet, we provide the nation’s SBDC business counselors/advisors with a crime index (i.e. crime risk) developed by Applied Geographic Solutions (AGS).

CrimeRisk (from AGS) is the result of an extensive analysis of over seven years of FBI crime statistics. Based on detailed modeling of the relationships between crime and demographics, CrimeRisk provides an accurate view of the relative risk of specific crime types at the block group level. The AGS Crime database provides indexed crime data for your geographical area. It provides indexes for assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, murder, personal crime, property crime, rape and robbery. It also provides an index for total crime in the area.

During 2005, the following states presented the highest and lowest crime index in the country ( All values are displayed as indexed numbers [Base Average = 100] given the Index Base File: US):

Highest:

189 District of Columbia
153 Arizona
131 South Carolina
131 Florida
127 Texas

Lowest:

62 Maine
56 Vermont
55 North Dakota
53 South Dakota
53 New Hampshire

Besides “total crime index”, this dataset (available down to the ZIP code level) shows indices for assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, murder, personal crime, property crime, rape and robbery.

J. Eric Lomeli

Contact Us

SBDCNET
UTSA Institute for Economic Development
University of Texas at San Antonio
501 W. Durango Blvd.
San Antonio, TX 78207
http://sbdcnet.org/
sbdcnet@utsa.edu
800.689.1912