By gloria stravelli
Staff Writer
CHRIS KELLY Dolores (l-r) and William Stein, Oceanport, and Bill Stein, Fair Haven, confer with Nursefinders staffing coordinators Denise Sarambo (foreground), Neptune, and Josephine Florke, Long Branch.
While other business owners were festively ringing in the new year last night, Dolores and William Stein were likely to be driving an employee to work.
"Dolores drives people, at 11 p.m. and 12 a.m. at night to get them to a patient so (the patients) don’t go unattended. She often does that several times a week," explained William Stein, who, along with his wife, operates Nursefinders Inc., a Shrewsbury staffing service that provides nurses and aides for home health care and nursing home facilities.
"We may very well be out there on New Year’s Eve," said Stein. "Last year, I drove Dee and an aide to a patient’s home in Freehold during a snowstorm."
"It gives me a good chance to meet the clients, and it’s very satisfying. They are a joy in my life," said Dolores Stein. "I get to know the employees extremely well when I drive them, and I have a good relationship with many of them."
The medical staffing franchise owned by the Oceanport residents is in its 15th year of operation and has grown from a small service to one of the area’s largest providers of per diem nursing and home health-care personnel.
Last year, among 134 Nursefinders offices nationwide, the Shrewsbury franchise ranked third in sales.
"We started in May 1987 with two nurses and an aide and they were all over Monmouth and Ocean Counties," quipped William Stein. "We now manage an average of 125 cases a year and over the course of that year, employ between 400-500 field staff personnel."
According to Bill Stein, the Steins’ son, the Shrewsbury franchise has serviced some 4,000 patients since it was established by his parents in 1987.
In addition to its headquarters at Avenue of the Commons in Shrewsbury, Nursefinders has a satellite office in Ocean County on Beaverson Boulevard in Brick.
This year, the Shrewsbury franchise was one of the few medical staffing agencies among 300 in the state to be "Accredited With Distinction" by the New Jersey Commission on Accreditation for Home Care, a body comprised of public and industry officials.
Bill Stein of Fair Haven, vice president of Nursefinders, said the agency employed some 170-200 employees to provide care at private homes and nursing homes on Christmas.
"On New Year’s Eve, we’ll provide almost 200 trained personnel at private homes and nursing homes," he added. "In the case of home care clients, they’re our patients and they still need help. When the holidays come up, a lot of nursing homes’ regular staff don’t want to work," added Stein. "We are totally responsible for the care of home care patients. We’re on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week."
"This company has never abandoned or let a patient go without care, ever," said William Stein, "even when we have had to put a higher level of professional in place."
Nursefinders’ role, Bill Stein explained, is to be an integral part of a comprehensive health care system, and, under the direction of a physician, provide acute care, restorative care and rehabilitation.
The staffing service serves two sets of clients, William Stein explained.
"Our main job is to find work for nurses and nurses’ aides," he said. "We also have clients, the patients, who are just as important — and their families.
"In general the medical care side is frequently the easiest part. The family dynamics often are the most difficult because we are uninvited guests in people’s homes. They need us, but they didn’t need that illness that brings us, so they are extremely stressed at times. We become a part of the intimate life of that family."
Nursefinders places nurses, both RNs and LPNs, certified home health aides, certified nurses’ aides and nursing assistants in private homes, long-term care facilities and nursing homes on a part-time, per diem and full-time basis. They also provide short- and long-term contract staffing assignments, including live-ins.
In its home health-care division, Nursefinders "brings the hospital to the patient’s bedside," William Stein said, allowing patients to be discharged from the hospital and cared for appropriately and cost-effectively at home.
One-on-one care is provided by home health aides, physical, occupational and speech therapists, LPNs and RNs.
For patients that require non-medical care, the service provides supportive personal care by home health aides and household services by homemakers and companions that enable individuals to live independently in their own homes.
In managed-care settings, the staffing service places professionals in case management, utilization management, medical record review, medical sales and product support and clinical research. Clients include hospitals, nursing homes, clinics and physicians’ offices, and industrial sites.
The agency also contracts for temporary and emergency LPNs at county facilities including the Monmouth County Correctional Institution and the county Youth Detention Center.
Referrals come from several sources, including the Monmouth County Office on Aging, the Visiting Nurse Association of Central New Jersey, insurance company case managers, family members and even attorneys.
When a referral is received, Clinical Director Joanne Stein, Bill Stein’s wife, receives information, including a diagnosis and care location. The case is referred to an RN field supervisor who schedules a visit and creates a care plan in conjunction with the patient’s physician.
At the same time, the information is shared with an intake coordinator who assigns field personnel to staff the case.
"There’s a lot of detail work," Bill Stein explained. "You have to take everything into account from the pets in the household that an aide may be allergic to, to making sure the medical supplies are there. We even have to make sure there’s access to the home. There have been times when aides were locked outside the home because there’s been no one there to let them in. So, it’s a lot of details to be looked after."
"We get to know people. We take into account the case dynamics," said Dolores Stein. "You don’t have to, but we do."
Despite a nursing shortage, the Steins said they have been successful at attracting and retaining staff, some of whom have been with the agency since it was founded.
"We’ve had some of our office staff for many years so they’ve gotten to know all our clients," Dolores Stein said. "It’s important that the coordinators know our nurses and aides so they are able to best select whom to put on each case."
The future growth of the health care franchise is being driven by factors including technological advances, rising health care costs, overuse of antibiotics and an aging population, William Stein explained.
"Technology has expanded dramatically since we got into the business," he said. "More and more things can be done in the home. Plus, there’s a financial impetus coming from insurance companies. A hospital stay can cost $3,000-$4,000 per day. It’s expensive at home, but not that expensive, and technology allows the patient to be taken care of just as well at home."
Another growth factor is the increase in infusion therapy, Bill Stein said, due to over use of antibiotics and an increasingly antibiotic-resistant population.
Perhaps the strongest growth factor is the demographic of an aging population.
"Ten thousand baby boomers are turning 55 every day across America," Bill Stein noted.
"This trend will continue to increase and there will be more demand on us at all levels," William Stein added. "And there will be more of the same. People born today will be living to 100."