Today we’d like to introduce you to Rosaleen Doherty.
Rosaleen, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Right at Home has been helping seniors stay independent at home since 2002. We are a family owned business that started on the North Shore. As a young business people my husband, Jay Kenney and I had successful careers in the “dot-com” era in the telecommunications and Internet industry. Being in that world in Boston during the late 90’s was a thrill, because the infrastructure of what we use today was being created.
Of course, those heady days had to end and after 9/11, as a native New Yorker, I felt the need to reassess our future. I had an upbringing that stressed the fact that we had to take care of our neighbors and if we were privileged to be able to take advantage of everything our country had to offer (my mother immigrated to the US), then we were obliged to give back and help others. I spent my telecommunications career traveling all over the US to work in a business to business setting. Jay and I saw a path where we could help seniors, who deserved to be taken care of in their older years, take part in our local community and create a living to support our two children. This is how Right at Home was born.
We started in Beverly, MA and expanded over the years. Today, our largest office is in Somerville and we are proud to serve about 1,000 seniors every week. We have over 300 employees who are dedicated to helping others. They choose to do this work because they care about helping others, like Jay and I do. Right at Home provides hourly or 24 hour care including personal care, homemaking and nursing in the home. We try to solve problems for adult children who are struggling to manage care for their older loved one, their work commitments and their own family. With the aging of Massachusetts, our service has come to the forefront of family supports when it involves care of a senior.
Has it been a smooth road?
Private home care was not a very developed service in 2002 and there were not a lot of road maps out there to serve the number of seniors that were going to need to serve in the coming years. With the Baby Boomers passing the age of 65 in huge numbers everyday, the need for our services is exploding. This also means that we need to recruit and retain the best CareTeam members in the Boston area. Right at Home does this because we have turned our agency into a very supportive place for the CareTeam. Many of our employees are immigrants that are just entering the US economy and they need direction and support. They have chosen to go into healthcare because they want to do meaningful work. We train them and support them 24/7, so they are not alone out there when taking care of a client. These people go to work when we all stay home! They trudge through snowstorms and battle traffic to make sure their senior clients get the care they need. These are very special people and making sure we develop enough of them to serve the demand is our biggest challenge.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Right at Home provides professional senior home care services. All clients get a customized Care Plan put together by a Registered Nurse so we know exactly what the client needs and we have a way to communicate this to all CareTeam members. The services and specialties we provide are:
Alzheimer’s & Dementia Care Services
End of Life Care/ Hospice Support
Companionship Care and Homemaking
Personal Care
Physical Assistance
Respite Care
Skilled Nursing
RightTransportation Powered by LYFT
RightMeds Medication Management
What sets us apart from others is that though we serve all communities from Boston to Newburyport, we are still operate as a small family owned and operated agency. Though we have been doing this over 15 years, we still believe that families need their hand held during the care process. Right at Home has the resources to make sure that all clients get the care they need every day and at any time, but we still have the personal touch that is so necessary to make home care a good family experience.
When a family member calls, we don’t just sign them up on the phone. One of our Community Relations people goes out to meet with the client and family to really understand what they need and answer any questions they might have. The family meeting is at no charge because we want people to feel comfortable. Getting home care for the first time is scary, but we try to get them into the experience by holding their hand through the process. Nurses will develop the clinical Plan of Care and orient all the Care Team members to the client’s care. We have dedicated Private Care Customer Service Managers who are the “go to” person for Private Care families. The clients and families do not have to talk to different people every time they call. We have consistent management of the client’s care in the office so a relationship is built. Our commitment to client/family care and the touch points throughout the process make us different.
Lastly, we look for opportunities to give back beyond our senior population. I am a past president of the Rotary Club of Marblehead Harbor and over my 10 years of membership I have had the opportunity to serve my community in many ways. In early 2017, we collected clothes and supplies for NuDay Syria to provide to refugees in the camps in the Middle East and Europe. We thought this was going to be a small effort, but in the end we filled two whole tractor trailers with community donations. People would roll up to our collection spots in small trucks to donate to that refugee crisis. This past year, my Right at Home team and I took part in a nationwide support effort to support Free Wheelchair Mission. This organization gives away wheelchairs to the poorest of the poor, all over the world so they can live a life of dignity. To date, they have given away 1,000,000 wheelchairs with no strings attached. My team, including Celeste Begley and Victoria Gustiewicz, went to northern Costa Rica with other home care owners to assemble and fit wheelchairs to people that needed them. The people we met were from the age of 6 to 96. This was a powerful experience that brought clear to me my personal mission and the mission of Right at Home. Serving people to improve the quality of their life really is the best work that we can do.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Boston is a great place to age. Though we have older infrastructure and some of this can be restricting for those that might have disability, our City and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are dedicated to taking care of our seniors. Massachusetts is on the cutting edge of taking care of Older Americans and spends 3x more than the national average per capita to support our aging population. Massachusetts is dedicated to many creative ways to keep people out of nursing homes and aging in the community. Because our region is so expensive to live in, all of our communities need to do more to help our senior’s age in place. All of Massachusetts will be in need of businesses like ours, because people want to stay here. There are people all over the Commonwealth working to make Massachusetts a place for all ages. I am on the Advisory Council for Salem for All Ages and on the Board of Directors of the Marblehead Council on Aging. Any business in Massachusetts can get involved in efforts like these.
Contact Info:
- Address: 120 Middlesex Ave. Somerville, MA 02145
- Website: www.rightathome.net/boston-north
- Phone: 877-500-CARE (2273)
- Email: info@rightathomemass.com
- Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/rightathomebostonandnorth/
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/rightathomebostonandnorth
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/RightAtHomeMass
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