Family Caregiving - Work Assignment Protocol - 2023 09 29

 


When our family members can no longer fend for themselves a family caregiver emerges to take up the extra workload. This extra workload is handed over to family caregivers as an essential component of 'early discharge', 'hospital to home' and 'aging in place' healthcare policy.

The first formal occurrence of that extra workload is often identified during the handover consultation in a doctor's office or healthcare institution. This handover consultation typically marks the conclusion of a health crisis and a milestone that begins a new healthcare reality for the patient and the family caregiver. 

The nature of that extra workload varies as individually as the medical diagnosis facing the patient and the caregiving family. The family caregiver receives instructions for care as the health provider discharges their patient from their direct care. These instructions are often given verbally, there might be a quick demonstration of specific medical procedures the family caregiver is expected to carry out. These instructions, demonstrations and expectations constitute the medical work of family caregiving that has been assigned to the family caregiver.

The nature of family caregiving workload includes medical work, but that is only one dimension of the work entailed when families provide family caregiving infrastructure. Other dimensions of family caregiving that are common across family caregiving households:

  1. Private property - housing, furnishings, bed, bathroom facility, kitchen facility, living room; outdoor patio / deck / garden, accessible walkways; accessible transportation; 
  2. Household services - house cleaning, shopping, cooking;
  3. Personal services - dental care, bathing, dressing, toileting, dietary needs, laundry;
  4. Medical needs - as per doctor instructions, pharmacy instructions, prescription management, medical appointments / consults;
  5. Auxiliary services management - home support caregiving schedule, home support nurse visits, medical equipment oversight;
  6. Mental / emotional / social needs - family / friend visits, outings, enrichment activities, social events, cultural events, spiritual care;
  7. Financial needs - taxes, banking, bookkeeping, accounting, bill paying;
  8. Overall care infrastructure administration - planning, tracking, reporting; financial viability; resource availability; caregiving infrastructure sustainability
  9. Operations management - communications management; day to day routines, week to week scheduling, visitor transitions, in-home risk assessment and management, seasonal adjustments, resource procurement, one-time only events, annual events;
  10. Family Caregiver support - day to day / week to week workload distribution; resource assignment, training and orientation; monthly, seasonal, annual replacement for respite, family visits, vacation.
We need a protocol for assigning family caregiving work as we assign any other mission critical work in our professional, non-profit and government work settings.

This protocol needs to include budgeting time, material and finances for all the work (and likely more) that is listed above so that the family caregiving family can be properly prepared and supported for the new life they are entering as a family caregiving household.

This protocol would also include automatic membership in a national network of family caregivers, which provides an experienced family caregiver mentor to help the family caregiver transition into a successful, sustainable caregiving home. Membership in the national network of family caregivers would include a guaranteed basic income for family caregiving households to ensure their work is adequately supported financially as well as providing access to medical, physical, mental, emotional and social supports.

The work of family caregiving should be treated with the same respect and gravitus as any other work assignment that involves the health and well-being of another human being. This respect and gravitus would reflect the reality that the family caregiving home is taking on the risk of life and death (or serious injury) consequences for error.

Family caregivers need a work assignment protocol to help them successful navigate the transition into family caregiving and the ongoing support of a non-profit family caregiving network to sustain their efforts.

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