Please note: The transcript below is automated by speech recognition software and may contain minor inaccuracies.

Jeff Howell (00:07): 

Hi folks, and welcome to the home health 360 podcast, where we speak with leaders in home health and home care from across the globe. Today, I'm joined by two guests. We have Angie Kunnath owner and COO of home care assistance in the greater Toronto area for the past six and a half years covering the Western GTA of Waterloo and then expanding into the Toronto west suburbs of Mississauga and Oakville about three and a half years ago. Angie has also spent a number of years as a news anchor for the channel four radio network in Dubai, or she edited, presented and produced world news bulletins, which makes me feel a little insecure about my role on today's episode. Angie, welcome to the show. <Laugh> 

Angie Kunnath (00:51): 

Thank you so much, Jeff, for having us 

Jeff Howell (00:54): 

And we have Matt Vijayan and he's a man who speaks six languages and for the past seven years has worked with Angie in the Waterloo and Oakville markets at home care assistants, serving as the board director and currently is president and CEO. He has spent the better part of 20 years working for household names in the pharmaceutical business like Novartis and Eli Lilly mostly in animal health divisions. Matt, thanks for coming on today. So it's not often that we three people on a podcast all share the same geography. So it's nice to have some folks that are close by Angie will start with you today. You were in Dubai and not in home care. I'm really curious. This is the podcast where we bring on some global views of home care and home health. Bring us up the speed on why you came to Canada and how you got into home care and add some color on what home care and home health might look like in Dubai. 

Angie Kunnath (01:55): 

Absolutely. thank you so much for having us again. Jeff so for me in particular, I think the journey getting into home care was somewhat a national attraction. You know, like many individuals, you know, people move countries and continents for either work or for love. I was lucky enough to pursue both <laugh>. I am linked to Canada to build a life together with Matt and, you know, further my career opportunities. Both of us have had cozy corporate jobs that help us grow in our own careers and getting into home care. Wasn't a decision we made lightly Matt and I, we were at that junction in our life where we wanted to do something together and start something on our own but tie it with providing support to senior. And that's something that we've always done culturally speaking, as well as something from our personal experiences. 

Angie Kunnath (02:53): 

I cared for my grandmother when she suffered a stroke and was bedbound. It just seemed like a national natural attraction for us to embark on this journey together. You know, being born and raised in Dubai. I can tell you even 10 years ago, there wasn't a concept of providing professional senior care support for individuals in the community. You know, home care is such an into concept, you know, that is primarily managed by family members. Very rarely would you see an external support system being brought in to a house to manage one's aging needs, but I've seen that now this landscape is changing. There are more resources being allocated to healthy aging and aging in place. You know, families are more open to seeking experts such as ourselves when it comes to managing their loved ones at home. So I guess that's, you know, our seven year journey in a nutshell to summarize how we got into home care and how I landed in can. 

Jeff Howell (04:00): 

That's great. And so, you know, when I, when I think of Dubai, I just think of the, the amount of money, you know, I see online the the police drive Ferrari and you know, there there's drones that are motorcycles. I would imagine there's a big market for high end concierge home care and home health services. Absolutely. What are your thoughts 

Angie Kunnath (04:24): 

On all that? Absolutely. I think what we've noticed of late of recent, especially in the last five years or so, there has an increase demand for services that people are looking for. There are a lot more aging population that are being retained within the country. The bias part of the United Arab Emirates. And within this particular country, you don't often see in a lot of individuals beyond the age of 65, and that's primarily because of the age restrictions that the country has kept, but I know that has opened up a lot now with people being able to buy more properties and continue of on their lives there and have multi-generational families there. So that has changed the landscape in wanting to bring in support systems for those who still wanna have a lot of nuclear family style living and, but still be able to manage their aging parents concerns and keeping them healthy at home. 

Jeff Howell (05:24): 

Okay. So Matt you're you, you went from big pharma to home care, bring us through what your journey looked like. 

Matt Vijayan (05:35): 

Absolutely. Jeff my journey started off as a pharmaceutical rep. I moved to Canada in 1999 from Mumbai India and joined Novartis and had a great career went through different levels. I was a business analyst in the neuroscience department. Actually, I was involved in the, with a launch of an Alzheimer's disease drug called Exelon. So that gave me sort of an idea of of what goes on from a pharmaceutical perspective in the brains of those who are impacted with dementia. So dementia became one of my interest areas, so to speak. And I got into, I, I moved to Mrs. Saga from Montreal in 2004 from the head office I worked in in their ophthalmic divisions. And again, we were dealing with a lot of age related macular degeneration, which is a the, the the biggest reason for blindness in Canada. 

Matt Vijayan (06:43): 

So we were involved with seniors in different forms with different degenerative conditions. And in all these conditions, what I felt is that these were all sort of symptomatic relief, what the seniors act, who needed to Angie's point support in their own homes aging in place is something that we always talk about. But we haven't seen that in Canada in a, in a big extent. So going back to what Angie was talking about, and we had this entrepreneurial spirit, and we also had this corporate background and bit of an idea of what happens with seniors in this particular space. And we decided to take a lunch and explore different options. And we were exploring different home care companies. And I, my coming from a very evidence based industry, I was mostly interested in an organization which taught science and which was very evidence based and caregiving can be very evidence based and also being very professional and home care assistance actually provided that platform. And we were sold on that right away. So that's kind of like in a brief idea of where mm-hmm, <affirmative> where I started and how we ended up. So give 

Jeff Howell (08:07): 

Us why home care assistance, and give us a quick snapshot of what the company looks like today. I know you have offices in a number of different countries and you guys are growing what, what does for the folks that don't know haven't come across home care assistance, give us a view into what the company looks like. 

Matt Vijayan (08:28): 

Sure. Yeah. Angie, you wanna start or do you, is that 

Angie Kunnath (08:32): 

Question for home care assistant? Yeah, go for is one of the leading senior home care franchises. It's, you know, multinational started out in Palo Alto, California, and we were in this process of looking at, you know, various different home care companies that share a lot of our core philosophies as well. The biggest thing that attracted us to home care systems was their holistic approach to home care. And I remember going through the discovery process with them, where they talked about how we don't just look at individuals as tasks that need to be accomplished, but more so what can we do to dignify the care process? And that was the major selling point for us having cared for my own grandmother. I, I remember, you know, looking at staff that would come in to support her and how many things were be very task oriented. 

Angie Kunnath (09:28): 

There wouldn't be any connection to who this individual is that care is being rendered to. And there was a disjoint, there was a, and what can we do as a professional company, change that stigma? How can we empower caregiving to be natural and to be normal and not something that is a taboo for many families to even consider. And I think home care assistance really break that. And they were able to, you know, transcend lot of these concerns that many younger generations were getting into. And that really helped us out. I think ever since being part of home care assistance the franchise we've seen this company grow leaps and bounds. When we came on board, I believe we were one of the maybe 40th franchises to be open, you know across the world. And now they are 200 locations strong and growing <laugh> mm-hmm <affirmative>. So I think it speaks for itself as to how home care assistance has able to make a change in the senior care space. 

Jeff Howell (10:31): 

Is it so it's Canada, the us and Australia right now. Are you in any other countries? 

Angie Kunnath (10:37): 

I, I think they, I, I think that is where we are currently operational. Okay. 

Jeff Howell (10:40): 

Correct. And then, and how many would you guys have the franchise rights for the entire GTA west or how many, how many would be in the greater Toronto area and how many in Ontario, approximately? 

Angie Kunnath (10:50): 

I would say to give you go ahead, Matt. 

Matt Vijayan (10:53): 

So there are, 

Angie Kunnath (10:55): 

Yeah, so we, we have a very large territory that we support. And so it's anywhere from Mississauga to Waterloo region and all the cities in between. And we also go to Burlington and Hamilton. 

Jeff Howell (11:10): 

Okay. So I'm gonna ask the big question that everyone wants to talk about these days March you of 2019 comes along everything we're living in a normal world, and then COVID hits. And as we were chatting about before I hear different stories from agencies on how they were affected and, and the stories can have a big range. So bring us through what life was like and, and how you guys have managed through this global pandemic. 

Matt Vijayan (11:45): 

Certainly. so Jeff, it has been a, a tough ride in a nutshell. We are more of a care management organization. We just happen to have caregivers who are trained on what Angie mentioned, the holistic approach. And we have care managers who are designing a care plan executing on what needs to be accomplished from a care perspective through the caregivers. So prior to COVID 19, it was all about plant acquisition, and also basically making sure that we are being heard through different platforms, you know, social media and other things. COVID 19 actually put more pressure on human, you know, talent, acquisition challenges. So in other words, we were finding it harder to find the right talent who could accomplish those tasks that may or may not be able to, you know, may or may not be able to be accomplished by some of the typical caregivers. 

Matt Vijayan (13:02): 

But we are also looking for individuals who have the drive, the passion, the compassion, the to deliver in terms of restoring the purpose, right? So there was a huge, huge dirt in the employee pool and who would apply for us and that created a big void. And so there were seniors who were looking for help during this COVID 19 time. One of the biggest reason was isolation lash boredom because there was a lot of lockdowns happening, not just in, you know, in different communities, but also in retirement homes and long term care. So the loved ones were looking at different op opportunities for either themselves going in helping them out and the, but they were restrictions being put on that. So, so we never had any issues of getting clients, but we definitely had to go through a, a a, a different kind of a challenge of recruiting. Yeah. It's  

Jeff Howell (14:07): 

The common person may not even think, you know, a lot of people don't even know about home care. And it's a funny industry where getting is not a problem. That's the challenge for most businesses is, is attracting enough customers. It's really a labor pool challenge. So I think what I'm hearing from you is, so caregiver turnover usually ranges from 60 to 80% you know, in a normal year. And so the net result, you was just kind of a drawing up of potential candidates to get into the top of the funnel to hire and, and start with to, to begin with Angie, what what are your thoughts on when COVID hit bring us through the struggle for scrambling to get PPE, which I'm assuming was something that was not on your radar, maybe at all. And then all of a sudden it's an emergency <laugh> 

Angie Kunnath (15:02): 

I know, and, and, and you know, what coming from you know, the operational side of things but that was definitely a big challenge and the PPE market as well. It was very unknown at that point where people would have those large quantities that you needed. We were talking about gloves. We were talking about three play masks. We're talking about N 90 fives, isolation gowns for those who are not comfortable in accepting caregivers coming into their homes without the full protection. What we found was, you know, it took us a while to identify the right suppliers who could keep up with the study needs that we had. And we scrambled, we paid top dollars, like many of us in the early stages of the pandemic to get the necessary, but you do what it takes. You have to make the investment to keep your staff safe, give them the confidence that when they are trusting in you to go out and provide care for your clients, that they have the right resources and the right materials to do the job. 

Angie Kunnath (16:06): 

So we took the bullet, we bit the bullet, and we provided them with all the PPEs. But what we also found during this, you know, pandemic phase, which we are still going through is the educational component. You need to constantly educate both your clients and your caregivers with what's going on. There is a lot of data that was thrown out, you know, via a media via all the updates that were coming from, you know, the public health, but to succinctly put them and tell them what's relevant to them. How is this gonna help you stay safe? What measures are we doing as a company to keep both our clients and our caregivers safe, paid a, played a huge role in retaining the caregivers that we had. There was the natural nutrition that happened because of the pandemic, because cause there were health concerns that some of the caregivers would have, and this thing goes true for clients as well. But I think for the large majority, we were able to retain the confidence in many of our caregivers by being able to educate them on how to survive during this pandemic days, you know, by being able to provide them with the, of PPEs and reducing the number of clients that they are managing in a given week or reducing the exposure that they are having as well, all these kind of played into how we were able to stay afloat and grow <laugh> mm-hmm <affirmative>. 

Jeff Howell (17:29): 

And so what's the current state of not just home care assistance, but what, what's your thinking of just home care in general, we've got clients that might still be hesitant and cancel services that they, that are not absolutely necessary. We've got some caregivers that may not be vaccinated. We've got maybe some, some vaccine hesitation. This is all on top of you know, declining numbers of people that are applying to be caregivers. And then I, I would presume that the caregiver turnover number has become even more challenging with caregivers you know, having to, to wear PPE. So what, what do you think is the general state for home care agencies in Canada in dealing with all of these items? 

Angie Kunnath (18:19): 

I think it's a highly competitive market for home care companies. If they're trying to retain the talent that they have and attract new people into their organizations. The biggest thing that we have noticed is that for the longest time home care companies were quite traditional in their thought process. If anything, the pandemic has thought everyone to think on their feet, re-energize reinvent themselves and focus, you know, shift the focus a little bit, not just on the client, but also on the employee care side, you know, talk about what can we do to invest in their future. And that has helped in, you know, retaining the talents and also attracting some of the newer talents who may be foreign to this industry. A lot of individuals were displaced because of COVID 19. And those were individuals that were working in the retail space and the restaurant space that were out of jobs. 

Angie Kunnath (19:14): 

And I know many people wanted to, you know, AWAL the stir benefit and some of them did, but some of them wanted to also be useful during this pandemic. We actually took in a lot of these individuals gave them the training. They went through the home care assistance bootcamp <laugh> to become professional caregivers. And then they have been some of our best caregivers. So, so that's, I think how we've seen that home care organizations have started to rethink in how they're attracting the talent coming into this industry. And I think you know, in the last 12, 18 months, we've seen, you know, many organizations such as ourselves grow leaps and bounds, not just in our client acquisition, but also in the way we operate and how we make ourselves stand apart and be a solid courier for those who are looking to get into the healthcare. 

Jeff Howell (20:09): 

I remember just over a year ago, it was one of the major hotel chains that actually came up with a program to help actually train away their employees because they knew the furloughs were gonna be so long that they just said, we're gonna, we were partner. They were partnering with some folks in healthcare to offer these programs to do a career transition for these folks. So Matt question for you, the with, with respect to, for the folks that are listening at home and they might be thinking of a career in in home care in Ontario, can you bring us through so the terminology most people use as personal support worker in the United States, it's mostly home health aid is what is what the, the term is. What is it if someone's interested in the industry? So there's, the home care is since bootcamp, but otherwise how, how do you get the training and the credentials to become a caregiver? 

Matt Vijayan (21:17): 

So, Jeff, Jeff, just to clarify, you're talking about, yeah. Getting, if I'm within home 

Jeff Howell (21:22): 

Care, say I used to work retail, the industry in general, you know, a lot of gyms have shut down. A lot of retail businesses have shut down and you know, and I'm looking for an industry that has the demand and if I'm willing to put in the work I'm gonna, I can get the hours that I want and I'm taking a look at home care. 

Matt Vijayan (21:44): 

Absolutely. Jeff, one of the things we have noticed when we have the candidates supply and we are getting more, are more candidates apply as we coming off of the babe three. And we see the numbers, yes, slightly increasing, but the vaccinations have started working. It's doing its magic as supposed to do. And we have noticed that most of the people who are applying are they want to get into a position. They want to build a career. But there are other people who may or may not have the, the soft skills, this particular industry is 90% soft skills and 10% hard skills. Now I'm not talking about typical PSW work. Most of the work is that we do at home care systems are very companionship based. They are very person centric. They do involve task oriented activities. 

Matt Vijayan (22:47): 

However, you are also looking at, as Angie mentioned earlier, building relationship storing the purpose of living. And there has to be a sense of purpose. Someone who is living with moderate to severe dementia as you should be living with the same purpose like anyone of us are living and these, they still should be able to experience activities within whatever capabilities that they're able to experience. So you need individuals who are bringing that passion, the patients in that industry. So in hospitality, for example, we've seen that people who have, who have transitioned from hospitality industry to home care are, have done really well. And we've been very impressed with the way, you know, they have such a customer-centric approach. And that's what we want with our clients that they are ready to serve. 

Matt Vijayan (23:51): 

You know, you don't wanna steal their independence, but you want to enable them and feel the pride that they CA they are still capable of doing things. So first and foremost, I feel that's, what's required the attitude, the you know the customer centric approach. And I think hospitality industry individuals have done really well. The second is, you know, one of the biggest apprehensions for people trying to jump into this industry is that, do I have have the right skillset? I really want to help seniors, you know, do I have the right skillset? So organizations such as us we are not very physical intensive organization because about 90% of our clients have some form of dementia and where, what you need is, is a good program that enables them to to carry out a gentle, persuasive approach, which is also a name of a program that we actually get the caregivers to train on which provides that the confidence, how you distract and redirect when they're getting lost, because there is an unmet need among these individuals who are living with dementia. 

Matt Vijayan (25:11): 

And how do you understand that need rather than reacting to them, you know, how do we take a proactive approach? So we train them on that. You just have to bring to the table, the right attitude. So so that's the, the, the appre people have, and then to Angie's point in that bootcamp, I won't call it a bootcamp. It's, it's actually a, a couple months process of really evaluating how this individual is doing. Once they have gone through that, then we start cranking up the intensity levels. So we do have individuals who are going into long term care, where people are living with personal expressions. You know, that's what we, we term we use the terminology is the personal expression, and it can be very daunting to some individuals. And we wanna be, we wanna make sure that people are trained or go through the bootcamp, have experience of managing people with dementia, because they speak a different language. They have a very different mindset, and then we put them into that process. So yes, there is a process to convert a skill. And it's a very highly transferrable skill mm-hmm <affirmative> and convert that into something really meaningful in this 

Jeff Howell (26:26): 

Or the, the hard skill of dealing someone with dementia then is this the two month home care assistance program? Is that all anyone would need, or I think there's a lot of people that might have this perception that they, they need some other credentials in the dementia space to even get started. 

Angie Kunnath (26:47): 

I think a lot of the, you know, yes, credentials do help. You know, I, I won't say that they don't but dementia, the condition is so vast in how they present within individuals. It's hard to say that one pro which will work with the same with another individual. So a lot of the experiences, or, you know, your capacity to be able to work with those living with dementia, come from life experiences, come from being able to work with multitude diff different type of clientele. And those are the opportunities that we design and we develop in such a way, once a new individual has entered in the industry, they have multiple opportunities, you know, providing care for someone with, you know, early stages of dementia, slowly progressing to moderate stages, and then eventually to advance stages. And this is where the caregivers prepped and primed with so many months of experiences along are in-house training and programs that provides them with the right skillset to provide care for someone with personal expressions that are in, you know, high intensity needs is what we call them. 

Angie Kunnath (27:57): 

So there is a journey, you know, that is being tailored for the individual based on their comfort zone to make at point when there is someone that's applying to you who does not have a professional caregiving background, we are very honest and we help them guide through the process. We try to help them understand, you know, what their core competencies are as a home care company. What are some of the activities that we do? What are some of our services that we offer? And we try to match that with their competencies. And if that fit is right, then we talk about investing in this journey where we can help them get to a stage where they can, you know, really support some of the higher need individuals. And, and that's how, you know, we find a lot more of these individuals join us. Yes, we go through the traditional recruitment methods. People apply to our job ads, but the vast majority of our new hires now actually come from word of mouth from our existing caregivers. They have gone through this journey with us, and then they love the process. They love how we invest in their education and their future. And they speak about that with, you know, their loved ones with their families and friends and how they apply with us 

Jeff Howell (29:09): 

As an agency that does specialize in dementia. I would imagine the biggest obstacle you have is the denial of family members who don't wanna believe that, you know, you, you, you hate to see a loved one go down that road and, and we all make jokes about, you know someone's having a senior's moment. What's your advice to anyone that might be listening that is starting to notice some behavioral changes and you know, maybe they haven't even thought about getting care within the home with a a dementia sort of expertise, like like home, like home care assistance. What's your advice for anyone that might be listening that might be thinking about this? 

Angie Kunnath (29:53): 

I'll let you take this one, Matt. 

Matt Vijayan (29:58): 

Yeah. So the great majority of seniors, whether they are living with mild cognitive impairment or dementia they want to age well, and they want to age in place in the homes or in the communities. You know, they want to choose where they want to live. Right. And and the sure if their living arrangements and other things, but they're familiar with when someone is diagnosed with dementia, or there are some symptomatic precipitation happening because of the disease. The family members have already started thinking about moving them to another location because they feel that, you know, the stove will be switched on or they may take the car and, you know hit someone. So those are very natural apprehensions, which comes to family members' minds and there's help right at at their home. And whether they choose to go into a retirement community or in their own homes we can provide more of a consultative approach to the family members, provide them with different case studies and different scenario. 

Matt Vijayan (31:20): 

No two individuals living with the same kind of dementia are the same. And as Angie pointed out earlier, and it's very easy for us to say the family members are always in denial. They're looking at the finances, they're looking at the burden that's putting on the families you know, plate especially when you're living in a sandwich generation where you have to take care of your kids and also the, your elderly loved ones. And that creates a, a sort of a conundrum, which creates confusion among the family members. And we have seen a lot of that there's conflicts that emerges out of so as part of a care management organization, which I mentioned to you earlier you know, we try to mediate that process in the way that we provide education education, and not just from a home care perspective, but also we have partnered with other trusted who can help through this process. 

Matt Vijayan (32:29): 

There may be certain things which is beyond our expertise, and we try to bring them on board, whether it's wealth managers or estate planners, or estate lawyers or even geriatric care managers who are brought in to provide the families with a specific solution. And we obviously do the quarterbacking, making sure that everything is coordinated with due permission from the family members, so that you're not hearing it just from a home care organization, such as us, but you're hearing from sort of a 360 degree view of other trusted advisors. So it, it allows the family members to be to make some informed decisions. And that's, what's important during this critical time of their lives. And, and this is something, what people are not prepared, you know, and nobody talks about that. You may have such situation but we all have to be prepared. We all have to be educated. And that's what we try to accomplish. Right. And I think 

Jeff Howell (33:37): 

More than just being agency there, I, I would say more than half of of adults actually don't even know that home care is a thing because people think of hospitals and doctors as the health system. I I'm, I was, I was surprised to even hear you say wealth management, because I would not have put case management as more you know, or sorry, care management as encompassing as you know, financial advisors. Is that the norm, or is that just something that you guys offer with these other people that will play a role in the overall view of someone's life? 

Matt Vijayan (34:23): 

We have seen more and more not sure it's due to the COVID 19 situation. People are becoming a little bit more reluctant in terms of trying to justify the cost associated with home care. And there is a definite value associated with that. Because you're providing a more customized solution to making sure that your loved ones are safe, comfortable, and happy in wherever they've decided to stay. And you have an idea of what the finance is gonna look like. And obviously like one of us, we are trying to stretch our dollars as long as possible. The concern what most of the family members have, or the powers of attorney have is that, you know, how long my loved one is going to live and how long is my finance is going to last. And you know, I, I always say, you know, why I'm, I don't have the, the right answer to you. And obviously there's some privacy issues. Why don't you connect with your wealth manager and believe it or not, there are cases where there's no financial advisor involved in this whole process. And they may not have the expertise. So that's where we bring in the wealth manager component to it who would be able to provide sort of what that breakdown is gonna look like. You know, how long the finances can last. The biggest misconception is that home care can be very expensive. So 

Jeff Howell (36:03): 

Let's let's, which is not true. Let's drill down on that for a second, if I'm listening right now, and I think, Hey, I think my mom might need some help, maybe a couple times a week. What, what are the industry standards for? What, what I think right. It would cost me and whether I'm paying out of pocket, or are there any government assistance programs? What does all that look like? 

Matt Vijayan (36:29): 

So every single home care organization is so different in how they model their care process. We have a, we have a process in which we have a minimum of four hours per visit of the caregiver a minimum of 20 hours per week. So that's, that's how we have designed it because we have noticed that because we have dis decided to calibrate ourselves to people living with dementia, you need to build a relationship. You need to be there with the senior to help out in what Angie talked about. It's kind of executing a holistic approach. Now there are other organizations who would do lower number of hours. So the reason I bring this up is that it dictates the monthly dollar value associated with it. So from perspective, it could be anywhere between $2,000 to, and don't be blown away by this number. 

Matt Vijayan (37:29): 

And I'm, I can give you sort of a perspective why $2,000 to $24,000 a month, and why there's a $24,000 a month, is that these are individuals who are at the end stage and they need help round the clock 24 7 even overnight they're at the risk of falling, they're at the risk of hurting themselves or hurting someone else. And and that's where the $24,000 comes in, but it starts with $2,000. And and to, to your point, Jeff most of the time, the, the, you know, the seniors do not need 24, 7 or two hours a day or eight hours a day. They need only like four hours, five times a day, five times a week. And so our entry point is of, you know, we, what we have seen is starting around $2,000 and then we can always modify that there's no long term contract associated with with this kind of a process. And the families gen generally get comfortable with it because they have not displaced their loved ones or loved one to another location, which is completely unfamiliar to them. And and they get to have the peace of mind that you know that the loved fund is taking care 

Jeff Howell (38:59): 

Of. Yeah, I like that. Does that answer the give question, give us a reason Angie for Matt said it it's been a really COVID has been a rough ride. Give us a reason to be optimistic about the future. 

Angie Kunnath (39:10): 

I, I, I think we've all reached a point where we are learning to live with co I think this is being a biggest eye opener first, if it not, if not for COVID, would've been something else that would've changed the landscape for many industries. And I think you know, what it has done is, you know, allowed a lot of organizations, a lot of families a lot of individuals to just kind of have that interest in into themselves and see what can we do to live our lives better. And I think as we, you know, embark on this journey further down the road, I think we'll see more new concepts arise. I think we are seeing that come about. And I am for one excited about the new innovations that we are in the senior senior care space the remote monitoring, the, the devices that are coming about, and that allows for individuals to stay more independent at home and really embrace that holistic int way of living. I think that's something that we all have something to be and looking forward to 

Jeff Howell (40:17): 

Matt, do you have anything to add? 

Matt Vijayan (40:23): 

No, I concur what, what Angie said, it it's an exciting field. Anyone who wants to come help out seniors. There's a, just to give you a bit of an perspective on numbers, I'm a numbers guy. <Laugh> so <affirmative> in Canada when you compare it to Denmark, which is Denmark is considered to be one of the top ranking. Yeah. 

Jeff Howell (40:48): 

They have the countries, that's where the be source model came out of. They spent, I think it's the community based program. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Correct. Yeah. 

Matt Vijayan (40:56): 

Community based system. Right. So they spend more on home care than in institutional care. And and I think in Canada, if I were to look at, from a GDP perspective, we spend only about 0.6% of our entire GDP on home care. And we spend 1.3% on long term care. So we have seen a change in that trend, the governments, the provincial governments and the federal government has started thinking about investing more in home care. There are a lot of individuals who are coming from the hospitals who are in this alternate, alternate levels of care, not being able to be placed in a long term care because of the lack of beds or rooms. It, so definitely the governments have to spend money on the home care. So they have, there has been a revival. There has been a more focus on home care, not just from a private home care perspective, but also from a publicly funded home care. 

Matt Vijayan (42:05): 

This is only going to go up in terms of demand as more and more seniors come in in this, say that in next 22 years, 4.2 million seniors will be entering into the system. And 82% of them would be over the age of 75 years. These are big numbers. These are numbers, which are scary because we are not growing. As far as the long term, our beds, a concern or retirement homes, a concern at the same rate. So the only solution we can see in front of us is providing care at their homes in a more affordable. Yeah, 

Jeff Howell (42:44): 

I agreed. I think a silver lining of COVID is it really expedited, this sort of divide between the institutional fact of putting people into buildings and there, there will always be a role for that, but the more we can actually provide care within homes and the community because that's what people want. And you know, we can't build enough buildings for for the silver tsunami that's coming. Well, folks, I've learned a lot today and I've really enjoyed getting to know you both, I'll get you out of here on this, if if I'm listening to this and I say, this makes a lot of sense, I'm in the greater Toronto area. And I might have a parent that has dementia. How can I get in touch? 

Angie Kunnath (43:33): 

So, yeah, feel free to, you know, reach us out on our website or give us a call. All our website is home care assistance. . Mississauga.ca. We have another one in the GTA as well. That's home care assistance, oakville.ca, and reach out to speak to one of our care managers. You might catch, you know, myself or Matt on one of those calls. And the number to call would be nine oh five three three seven one twenty. 

Jeff Howell (44:02): 

Well, super thank you again. Sorry, go ahead, Matt. 

Matt Vijayan (44:06): 

And, and Jeff, the Oakwell site also service Burlington, Milton Halton Hills as well. So yeah, we do, we do expand our, obviously our offices based in Oak feel for the Halon region. 

Jeff Howell (44:20): 

Well, and, you know, I think home care agencies can span a lot of geography because regardless of where your office is, it really has to do with where, where you've hired your caregivers. And so exactly. So you guys have a lot of bases covered you're right. Well, super thank you again for both taking the time to join me today and keep up the great work and maybe one day we'll run into each other at a home care conference when life is somewhat back to normal. <Laugh> well, looking forward to thank you so much for having us, Jeff. Okay.