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Preferred Home Care: Widening the Reach of Quality and Cordial Care

Berry Weiss, Founder, and CEO,Preferred Home Care
Berry Weiss, Founder, and CEO,Preferred Home Care

Quality healthcare is a product of teamwork. The world has been experiencing this during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. From hospitals, clinics, NGOs, and home care services working diligently to aid patients at a local level to countries exporting medicines and COVID-19 vaccines to other countries, everyone has been doing their bits to fight the current crisis together.

Along with healthcare personnel’s extraordinary efforts to major loopholes in the healthcare sector, the ongoing pandemic has also highlighted the importance of in-home quality care, especially for seniors. Preferred Home Care based in Brooklyn, New York has been diligently working in the healthcare field to provide quality and cordial care to seniors at their homes or communities they love. And Berry Weiss, Founder, and CEO of Preferred Home Care, highlights the key factor of success as teamwork.

In the following interview with Insights Care, Berry talks about what inspired him to enter the home care sector, what challenges the team faced, and how the company survived the pandemic and to now working on extending its services to a wider population.

Below are the highlights of the interview.

Brief our audience about Preferred Home Care, its values, and the key aspects of its stronghold within the home care services industry.

I founded Preferred Home Care back in 2007 with just 12 employees and the mission to provide caring and compassionate services to the people in our community in the comfort of their homes. We have since grown into one of the largest licensed home care agencies in the state, servicing over 7,000 patients and employing approximately 11,000 field and administrative staff in 14 counties throughout New York.

The company’s growth has been built on outstanding customer service and our unwavering commitment to providing reliable, compassionate, and quality care. I believe that quality healthcare is the product of exceptional teams. To that end, we not only seek out and hire the best, but we also strongly support and encourage professional development by providing outstanding advancement opportunities for our employees.

When you join Preferred, you’re truly joining a family, and I’m proud that our vibrant company culture and sense of family have only grown stronger as we continue to expand. Nurturing these values has been a huge key to our success. “Teamwork makes the dream work!”

Tell us more about the services that make Preferred Home Care stand out from the competition?

At Preferred, our passion and dedication to helping our patients to find highly skilled and compassionate aides who integrate seamlessly with their unique family dynamics and schedule have always been a key factor that makes us stand out from our peers. We believe finding that perfect fit is crucial to the quality of care. It’s all about making the right match. Many of our aides are graduates of our training school, which is accredited by the New York State Department of Health, and from which we’ve proudly trained and certified over 7,000 home health aides to date. 

Brief us about your journey in the healthcare industry.

My journey started almost 20 years ago when I started working at a rehab facility in Brooklyn. After working in the home care industry for a while, in 2007 my wife Raizy and I started Preferred Home Care of New York.

We opened our doors in 2007 with 12 support staff (many of whom are still with us) and a vision of how home care should be delivered to seniors in our state. A good part of our success can be attributed to hiring experienced professional employees who were able to help move the company along.

Being able to take risks and think outside the box has enabled Preferred to stand apart. We provide health care paraprofessionals to approximately 800 students through a contract that we have with the NYC DOE. A few years ago, we established Preferred Gold to provide private pay concierge home care services in the counties that we are licensed to offer.

What is your opinion on the impact of the current pandemic on the global healthcare sector, and how has your company fared during the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns?

When I think about the impact of COVID-19 on the healthcare sector, the word ‘innovation’ holds deep significance. While the global pandemic has placed unprecedented strains on our healthcare systems, the industry has responded with resilience, and with a surge of inspiring innovations that are key to building a stronger, healthier, and brighter future whether they be products, services, processes, or business and delivery models.

Leaders in our field have shown incredible innovation in the ways they have mobilized teams to action and generated new systems for them to acquire crucial skills and tools amidst a global crisis. In a time when employees are facing unprecedented personal challenges, there has been an enormous and successful focus on finding new ways to support, empower, and inspire our workforce.

I have also been incredibly moved by the coalitions I’ve seen emerge in this time of common crisis. From the alliances formed to develop therapeutics to manage COVID-19, to academic institutions aligning to share clinical trial protocols crucial to improving their speed and accuracy, traditional competitors in our industry have become collaborators in the spirit of a shared goal.

At home with Preferred, the pandemic has truly challenged us to adapt and has tested our resilience to defend our dream. I have been deeply inspired by the innovation and creativity of our incredible employees, which has allowed us to pivot and thrive in this year of immense challenges. We have refined and strengthened our internal support systems, ensuring our caregivers have been well-equipped to give every client outstanding service. Together we’ve made sure that our patients, the demographic most at-risk during this pandemic, can continue to live in the homes and communities they love.

We’ve also been lucky to have had the resources to distribute countless PPE supplies, and even shared our time and resources to support local hospitals, facilities, and workers on the front lines in the time they have needed it most.

I look back on this past year with a deep sense of gratitude for our ability to hold steadfast to our collective commitment to caring for others and I’m blown away at the innovation and collaborative spirit that have made it possible. The dedication to our mission has never been clearer and stronger.

In your opinion, what could be the future of the home care services sector post the pandemic? And how are you strategizing your company’s operations for that future?

During Covid-19, we have learned that patients expect more remote care than ever, and as the pandemic continues to disrupt health care delivery as we know it, the inclination for home-based care options will continue to increase. Covid-19 has only underscored the benefits of home-based health care delivery and how it can continue to positively impact our communities.

In terms of our strategy and adapting to changing times, our mission to provide the absolute best quality care to every one of our patients continues to serve as our guiding light while we steadfastly invest in expanding and supporting our strong operational base of caring and compassionate individuals who are dedicated to delivering our mission. At the end of the day, it will always be about the exceptional, compassionate care and the tremendous customer service experience we can provide. One patient at a time.

As an established leader, what would be your advice to the budding entrepreneurs and enthusiasts aspiring to venture into the home care services sector?

Networking is key! Establishing strong relationships and building trust with other healthcare agencies, hospitals, healthcare professionals, and above all patients in your community is going to be vital to your success.

How do you envision scaling your company’s operations in 2021?

In addition to meeting the growing demand for services in our communities by continuing to provide the gold standard of care, I am always looking for ways to expand our range of services so that we may serve an even wider population. Since the beginning of 2021, we’ve augmented our list of services to include skilled/private duty nursing and ABA therapy, with even more in store for the coming months.

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