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Every month I like to take the opportunity to ride with one of our sales reps from one of our three locations (and growing) to spend time with our referral sources, caregivers, patients and families. Often a sales call with the clinical leader of a nursing home or assisted living community will ask me “What makes Kindful different?”.
I love this question as it’s so important and it’s so simple. The Kindful difference is in our people. Just like a nursing home or assisted living leader knows that it is not the physical building that makes it a community, it’s the people serving the residents that makes it special. Well, it’s the same in hospice, it’s all about the people.
The Power of Purpose: How Kindful’s Culture Transforms Patient Care
So how does Kindful create teams of caring professionals who are more motivated to provide superior care to patients and families than our competitors? I can tell you it’s not by chance. It’s by loudly and proudly establishing our Kindful culture which is defined by our Purpose “To Serve”. We like to say that if a team member is serving a patient or family they are probably doing the role correctly. If they are serving themselves, then they need to give it some thought. We all need to rest and recharge but we must have the ratio correct and the more we are focused on serving patients and families the closer we are getting to what outstanding patient care looks like.
Kindful Values in Action
In addition to our purpose, we have the Kindful Values. Many companies say they have values but at Kindful we bring them to life by hiring to our values. And just as important, if a team member makes a choice not to uphold our values, we have the discipline to allow that person to work somewhere else. We will never sacrifice our values for any single individual. We will hold our values and standards high which in turn attracts more top performers.
The Kindful Values include: Truth, Excellence, Accountability and Mercy (T.E.A.M.). This simple pneumonic of TEAM helps us stay focused on what being a best in class caring professional looks like in relationship to the patients and families we serve and to our relationship with each other as a TEAM.
The 3 Essential Traits that Define a Kindful Team Member
Lastly, in order to recruit the best of the best we look for three characteristics or personality traits in everyone we hire. The three characteristics include 1.) Optimism, 2.) Enthusiasm and 3.) Growth Mindset.
Optimism is the recognition that, while hospice is rewarding, some days can be hard. So where do we go when times are tough? We pull on our deep held belief, our optimism, to know that tomorrow can be brighter than today.
Enthusiasm is the idea of energy. The families we serve are low on energy as they are physically and emotionally going through the draining challenge of a life culminating event. So from the moment our team walks in the door to the moment we close the door we must bring the energy to care. Caring is an activity like any other exercise and we must bring the energy to care.
Growth Mindset is the belief that healthcare owes it to society to constantly be evolving and improving. We don’t do well with sticks-in-the-mud or people who say that this is the way it was always done. Kindful looks for good ideas from those closest to any given issue and we actively seek input from our team members so we can surface, prioritize and resolve ways we can better serve our patients and families and referral sources.
Kindful’s Commitment to Patients, Families, and Each Other
So why is Kindful different? We are different because we set out to recruit, train, coach and support uniquely caring team members that in turn provide a higher level of care to all whom we serve. Bottom line: Kindful is built to “Outcare our Competition”.
Learn more about Kindful’s hospice care
Ask yourself, is your hospice doing enough? Or are they just going through the motions? We encourage you to let Kindful show you what true care looks like. To learn more check out our resources or contact us at (866) 730-4550 or [email protected]
