When I originally moved back to the Shreveport area, I was truly struggling to find my place professionally. I had not pictured myself moving back to the area, but I found myself very close to an ill grandmother. Shreveport was my hometown sure, but my ultimate calling to help people caught me in some very lackluster jobs. But, as only God can, he used one of those jobs to open a door to an industry I have a deep passion for – medical staffing and caregiving.
So what is medical staffing and caregiving exactly? The neat thing about our job is we are able to assist facilities with their staffing needs – from front desk positions to clinical professionals to coding specialists. In addition, we also have our caregiving sector of business providing families assistance when their loved one is recovering from a procedure to more long term illnesses such as dementia and Alzheimer’s.
IT KEEPS US BUSY! But that is what I love most about what we do. It keeps us on our toes and allows us to help people in need.
Prior to starting Elite, Joanna and I worked with a corporate medical staffing firm based out of Baltimore, MD. Joanna actually hired me! If only she realized how bossy I was back then! We had a small office in Shreveport, and we were able to place nurses and aides within various hospitals around the area while obtaining training from a national company regarding protocols within the industry. We absolutely LOVED what we did – it was fast paced, always challenging, and again revolved around helping people. But in 2008, the economy fell out and the company downsized Louisiana to one office in Baton Rouge. We were crushed and while both of us were approached by several competitors in the area, none of them fit “us.”
I remember our initial conversation about starting a business. I looked at Joanna one day and said, “Look, we are not the smartest kids on the block, BUT we are certainly not the dumbest either. Let’s try it and see what happens.” And just like that…..Elite Health Solutions was born. We literally wrote our business plan at my dining room table in a two bedroom townhome at the time and proceeded to get advice from my parents on the accounting side. I remember calling clients from that table and thinking “how in the world are we going to do this?” But God has surely proved us wrong. He has allowed us to continue growing – both in business and with helping people.
John Wayne once said, “Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway.” If I could put into words the level of fear Joanna and I had when starting Elite, it would probably have bordered on a life or death moment. Here were two young ladies that had worked for a corporate medical staffing firm now being offered an opportunity to start a small business in their hometown.
But what a lot of people don’t see is just how much we care about our clients, our customers, and our employees. Joanna and I, both natives to Shreveport, ran in similar circles growing up, but we did not cross paths until years after college when she was managing a staffing.
When we first started Elite, we assisted only facilities – hospitals, nursing homes, doctors offices, etc. We have seen a huge need to help facilities with their staffing needs so they do not have to carry the load of overhead when staff is unneeded. But as we would staff, we would get calls from families that would say, “Your employee has assisted our loved one while in the hospital. Can we use her when we get discharged?”
Now….if anyone ever tries to tell you caring for a patient is easy, do not believe it. It is literally one of the hardest things we deal with on a daily basis, but it involves again that passion of helping people and building relationships. I am often asked which sector of our business is harder to manage – caregiving or staffing facilities? And each time I answer with more validity than the time before – caregiving, hands down.
When a family initially comes to us, they are usually in a panic state. They are either exhausted from a hospital stay, live out of town and can’t get to their loved one, or they are seeing their loved one reach the end of life and need someone to help them cope. It’s very emotional. Indirectly we see each family’s grief, stress, humility, and anger process unfold, and it usually happens all within the same day. Our business works hard to take those feelings of panic and provide a solution to help families in need. Do we hit a homerun each time? I wish. But I will tell you this…..we genuinely care about our patients. I still remember the passing of our first client, I still remember holding the hand of a client when they took their last breath, and I still look ahead, getting up each morning, believing in what we do because of the power of relationships. My grandmother was a nurse for many years in the community. I still run into people who remembered her, and they tell me she was one of the most compassionate people they had ever met. Twenty plus years after retiring from Schumpert Hospital and in declining health herself, my grandmother was eating at IHOP and runs into a lady (Sillia) that had worked with her while doing diabetic education. Sillia, now a caregiver, had just finished caring for a patient that had passed away and signed on with Elite per my grandmother’s wishes. We placed Sillia with my grandmother, and she assisted her as a caregiver until her passing. It was the most beautiful thing. She also helped with my two girls and most recently my dad. All this is due to a relationship which was started 20 plus years ago inside a hospital with a nurse and an office clerk. It’s all about relationships.
I think about our story here at Elite and the services we provide. God has truly opened doors for our organization and allowed us to care for some of the neatest families in town. Most recently I received an email from a son in South Carolina about the passing of his mother. We were able to assist his mom and dad until his dad’s Alzheimer’s was so bad that he needed to be placed in the home. But his email touched my heart because two days after his mother had passed he writes to inform me how impacting our care was for his parents. It is in those moments I cherish this crazy ride and thank the big man upstairs for the opportunity to provide care for this community. At the end of the day, the goal of helping people and building relationships is fulfilled.