Vanessa Turner, Family Nurse Practitioner, Owner, Inspire Care and Support Services

Hi, my name is Vanessa. I’m a nurse practitioner and owner of Inspire Care Support Services.

We are a non-medical home care agency located in Highland, Indiana.

I always knew I wanted to be a nurse from the time I was young. I think probably around the age of seven I kind of figured out what I wanted to do and just always stuck with it.

So I’ve been in a nursing field, whoa, I’m kind of telling my age here, probably over 20 years now. Kind of worked my way up. Started it.

I did work as a CNA, worked as a medical assistant phlebotomist, then went up the ladder, did LPN, RN, BSN, then went back for my first master’s in nurse executive leadership.

Then I went back one last time for my nurse practitioner. I’m more of a solution-based person, so whenever I see a need, then that kind of sparks my interest to go and learn more.

So during COVID, there was a lot of gaps in care, so it kind of just sparked my interest to go back to become a mid-level professional. 

Why I Started a Home Care Agency

Actually, my last job was in corporate nursing. I used to work for a managed care organization and we used to do care management and care coordination for members on the health plan. And through that I learned that I had a burning desire for that non bedside care. 

So I was really able to work with people one-on-one, not in a rushed environment so they can really truly learn their healthcare conditions, how to better manage them, increase those quality outcomes. And it was also part of a state waiver program where members were receiving services in the home. 

So we were responsible for overseeing all of that. So through that, I’m going out into the field, I’m meeting these people in the homes, I’m seeing the care that they’re being provided.

I just started to brainstorm like, Hey, maybe this is something that I can take a step further on an independent level.

So I became a geriatric care manager first in just dealing with those seniors and the adult child population that needed a little bit more personalized service with their loved ones. 

And then through, so I started the care Management agency first Aspire Concierge Care. And then once I got into that model, I noticed that a lot of the seniors that I was working with, they also needed home care services. 

So initially I was partnering with those nonmedical agencies to provide collaborative care, but I noticed that I really couldn’t oversee the care that they were given. I can reach out to the company and say, Hey, you’re a caregiver. I noticed that your caregiver doing my visit was not interacting with the client or things of that nature.

And that’s probably as far as I could take it. So I decided to do some more research and see how can I start my own nonmedical home care agency? And that’s when Inspired Care and Support Services was essentially born. 

So I coupled that geriatric care management alongside with the non-medical caregiver services. 

• So it’s just that continuum all up under one umbrella I can kind of control or have over more that are oversight over the care that’s being given.
• Quality is being given. I can train my caregivers.
• I’m also a certified home health aid instructor. 
• I’m also a certified CNA instructor. 
• So I have an in-house training class. 

So that also is kind of what stands me out too, because really, really f on training and quality outcomes. So I make sure before they hit the field that they are equipped and the skills that is needed to actually care for a lot of these individuals who have chronic conditions.

How Home Care Has Changed

So like I said, during covid, those days were gone long gone where people were just coming in and just doing companionship. These people now, since the hospitals were flooded, they could not get seen. So you have people that were in positions where they were at home and they were really, really sick, and you needed someone to be able to understand those conditions as they walk in those warning signs and symptoms, how to properly transfer so on. 

And I noticed that that was not being done prior to me saying, you know what? Let me create an in-house training to make sure. Because what happens is that if you do not train properly, train your staff, they’re going to come in and say, oh yeah, I have the skills necessary. But we’re not in a facility where they can pick their head out and say, Hey, can you help me in room two?

No, they’re totally by themselves. So what end up essentially happening is that they’ll go out to the case, they’ll say that they’re equipped to take care of this person independently, and they’re not. And what would happen is they’ll leave, they won’t return. So it is starting to contribute to a high turnover rate. 

So it’s like your wheels get to spinning. How can I stop this train of, I mean, industry wise, we’ve always pretty much had high turnover rate, but it’s like, what can we do better? So just thinking, okay, maybe the gap is that the training and experience. So not only we create an in-house training platform for them, but we also have a kind of like a team leads program. 

So our team leads pair, they’re more experienced caregivers, and once they leave the training classroom, their parent, one of the team leads, and they walk with them through their first day and the first few days if they need it, because everyone is different in terms of their baseline knowledge.

So to give them that additional support that that’s needed in the field, and from implementing that, we noticed that it decreased the high turnover rate. 

How Is Inspire Care and Support Different?

Also, one of the things that stands us out is the fact that I am a nurse practitioner and I am an agent life care professional or geriatric care manager. 

I am actually the only geriatric care manager that’s certified through alca in northwest Indiana. So that provides a huge benefit to the clients that we serve. We’re bridging that gap between nonmedical and the skill side, which is definitely needed. 

With nonmedical home care. You have to have someone who understands a complete picture of what’s going on with that individual to create the most comprehensive care plan, someone who is knowledgeable and have a level of expertise to look over those medications. 

Not just to remind someone to take their meds, but to actually reconcile and make sure that what they’re taking is safe.

Being able to collaborate with those providers, whether it’s a primary care provider, a specialist, home health, we kind of do that all in one. 

We Offer IDD Services and Shared Housing

And then also too, one of our most recent service lines model that we’ve added to Inspire is we service the IDD population, which is intellectual and developmental delayed population. 

So we service that population as well. And we also provide shared living housing for individuals of that population as well. And I added that one on most recently because that is also kind of dear and near to my heart. Throughout my nurse career. I think I started off as a LPN working with this population. So I know how vulnerable they can be. So as I continue to grow, inspire, I said, you know what? Let me go back to the heart of it all and pulled on my heartstrings early on in my nursing career and services population.

So yeah, kind like I said, basic, definitely all in one combination here. Like I said, geriatric care management, senior care, individuals with regular disability, individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities all in one. Our goal is to make sure that individuals age in place and aid in their environments of their choice. And they, like I said, receive those quality outcomes, reduce readmissions and hospitalizations. That’s the goal. That’s what drives me. 

Our Shared Living Homes

Yeah, so we have houses. So we have actual houses. Some of our houses we’ve had to update till they can be a put ramps on ‘EM and things like that. Then we have ranch homes as well that doesn’t, no stairs or whatever. So our goal is like said to accommodate whomever and meet them wherever they are. 

So yeah, just your traditional single family homes where each individual has their own private bedroom, but we share staff and we provide 24 7 care. We take, if they do attend a day program, we provide the transportation to and from a day program. We help assist them with going to their doctor’s appointments. 

We take ’em out into the community to do Target, runs, Walmart to the or. We want to see them thrive in their environment, that’s ultimately the goal.