Meet Ashley: A trusted guide through the complexities of care

With our Care Expert Spotlight series, we’re taking a peek into the lives of Wellthy's amazing care professionals.

This month we spoke with Ashley, a Care Coordinator with extensive experience in speech language and patient advocacy. Wellthy’s team of Care Coordinators and Advisers work directly with families to understand their care needs, create a care plan, prioritize tasks, and get things done on their behalf.

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What is your background in and what drew you to Wellthy?

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I’m a trained Speech-Language Pathologist, which is also a caring profession. Throughout my career as a SLP, I supported families with communication and swallowing disorders, working in all levels of care from acute care to rehab to long-term care to palliative care.

What led me to Wellthy was being able to provide continuous support to families and help  them navigate overly complex systems. I love being able to advocate for them – that’s something I’ve loved throughout my career – being an advocate for those who can’t speak up for themselves or who don’t know how to ask the right questions or find the right services for their needs.

How does your background enhance your ability to help families at Wellthy?

At Wellthy, the members of the Canadian Care Team are jacks-of-all-trades, but we each come with a unique set of skills and experience, too. So, I find that I’m often assigned medically-focused tasks for challenging medical conditions (such as rare disorders that cause musculoskeletal issues or cognitive decline or swallowing problems). I also often get assigned tasks related to pediatric concerns (like developmental issues or neurodiversity).

My background really helps me help families in a more holistic manner. I’m not just looking at what healthcare services they need, but what funding opportunities there are for therapies, what respite services they can access, and what grants and credits they’re eligible for federally. Also, just anticipating how a disease or condition will change over time and what future needs they should consider. I don’t want any families to feel blindsided when health changes occur again.

For instance, when helping families look at private pay retirement homes, I’ll often advise them to consider the homes that allow a senior to age in place – so, anticipating that they’ll eventually need a ceiling lift or dysphagic diet. In those cases, I will work to find a home that can address their current AND future needs instead of having to move the parent two or three times.

Tell me about your personal experience as a caregiver.

Personally, I help my mother care for my grandmother who has end-stage Parkinson’s, as well as my great aunt who has end-stage COPD. I also support my mother on her cancer journey (she’s currently cancer free!) and I am a single mother. So, I think my entire life is caregiving!

How do we help families who lack resources locally in their area?

I’ll look at virtual supports, grants for medical travel if they need to see a provider in person, providers in the area that have some experience in their condition if not extensive expertise. It does require some creativity and our Canadian Care Coordinators love that challenge. Canada is a vast country. We don’t have many big cities and they’re small  compared to American cities, so resources may be fewer and we often have to get creative. Sometimes there are interprovincial agreements so that if a service isn’t provided in your town, you could qualify to have it in the next province over.

Do you have a favorite project or type of task you enjoy working on?

I like working on the “comparing long-term care homes” tasks which most people might think is crazy of me, because they can involve sifting through lengthy inspection reports on the homes. With those tasks, it’s about setting expectations with the families. The provincially subsidized long-term care (LTC) homes with available beds or the shortest waitlists are not always the families’ first choices. So we have to find the home that strikes the right balance between location, amenities, and cultural preferences, for example. Then I offer to share strategies on how to build relationships with the staff to ensure that your loved one is getting the care that you want them to receive.

I’m working with one member right now where I am helping keep him on track with LTC application deadlines for his father and making sure that he doesn’t get completely overwhelmed. I review the home options with him, help him make the list of his top choices, and try to reassure him that his father is going to end up in a good home.

Is it a challenge to develop trust and rapport with the families you work with?

It’s funny you should ask because I just had a meeting with some newer Care Coordinators about building trust and rapport with families! I think that starts at the beginning, with your welcome message. Just demonstrating that you hear everything the family is going through and that there are ways that Wellthy can support them so they’re not alone navigating their loved one’s care. Every person is different and sometimes I do have to work with them a little more on trust building, which is understandable because they only want the best for their loved one.

I always try to be responsive to their needs and make sure they feel heard. More often than not, they're just relieved to work with someone who knows the system and can relieve some of the pressure they’ve been feeling.

How does someone know when it is time to work with a Care Coordinator?

As someone who’s always had difficulty asking for help for myself, I’ve come to learn that you’re not being a burden on others and that there’s humanity around you and people who want to help. Also, it’s a sign of strength to ask for help. I often coach families NOT to try to do everything on their own. You’re not a trained personal supporter worker, you’re not a nurse. You’re a loving person who wants to provide support and part of that is finding the right professionals and services to help, and that’s where Wellthy comes in.

The time to ask for help is when you’re looking at your to-do list and thinking to yourself ‘This is more than one person can handle.’ I think we all have those moments and it’s important to not wait until it’s too late.

We get new Care Projects where the parent is already hospitalized and there are supports that could’ve been put in place prior to their fall or their illness. We’re definitely here for those urgent needs, but we can also help put preventive measures in place too.

How have you seen our Care Network grow over the last year to support families?

Note: Wellthy’s Care Network, which has over 350,000 (and growing!) pre-vetted providers, facilities, and vendors, to connect families with localized, best-fit resources as quickly as possible.

I love the Care Network! Building that library of resources and services that are already vetted and we know they have good reputations has been a life-saver. It’s allowed us to identify the most reliable vendors because we’re repeatedly checking back in with them for any changes in services or pricing before recommending them again. Our turnaround time and ability to provide great options within a short timeframe has just improved drastically.

It’s also a good way for us to share knowledge and support each other as Care Coordinators. It saves everyone time – work smarter not harder!

Do you have any tips or advice for family caregivers, or what is the biggest mistake you see them make?

Not having an Advance Directive or Power of Attorney (POA) in place. For instance, if a medical emergency occurs and the patient is unable to speak for themself, there’s stress and pressure on the family to make time-sensitive medical decisions, and they could be left wondering, “Am I making the choice my loved one would want?” There’s a lot of second guessing and internal turmoil. So having those difficult conversations early is so important.

It doesn't have to be one big, heavy conversation – it can be broken up into mini conversations that come up organically. For instance, if your loved one talks about a friend who was recently hospitalized and had all kinds of invasive procedures, that could be an opportunity to say, “Hey, you know, maybe we should talk about that so I know what you want if ever the time comes.” Just take advantage of those moments to get to know your loved one better and what their wishes and preferences are so you can honor them when the time comes.

I think in our Western culture there is a fear of aging and death and a resistance to talking about it even though it’s inevitable and a natural part of life. You want to honor your parents’ wishes, but you also don't want to cause that stress on yourself when the time comes. I’ve witnessed that a lot in my work in ICUs and acute care. It’s heartbreaking.

Then too, all that time and energy can be reserved for comforting your loved one and giving that emotional support they need, so you’re not being pulled away to deal with all the legalities and tough choices.