By Stephen Tweed 
The high tech companies attempting to disrupt the home care sector continue to make news. Home Team, the high-tech home care company serving New York and New Jersey, just announced an addition to the senior executive team. Matt Marcotte, a former executive in Apple’s retail business, has been named President of Home Team.
“I’m thrilled to have Matt on our leadership team as we drive towards our next chapter at Hometeam,” said CEO and Co-Founder, Josh Bruno. “Matt has built best in class retail businesses with a focus on being customer and employee obsessed, culturally led, operationally focused and technology enabled – resulting in significant scale at Apple, Gap, and Tory Burch. He’s one of the industry’s most respected leaders and under his guidance and oversight we will greatly expand our capabilities.”
Also joining the senior leadership at Home Team is Julie Stern, Chief Technology Officer. Julie comes to Home Team from Accolade, a technology company that offers solutions to employers, health plans, and health systems to improve outcomes. Prior to that Julie was Founder of KonciergeMD, a a technology platform that allows consumers to better engage their physicians , which was acquired by Accolade.
“Hometeam has a tremendous vision to transform the home care industry and we believe by introducing technology innovations in partnership with our Caregivers, we will build a best-in-class customer experience,” said Julie. “If we better understand the value of the interaction between our Caregivers and patients – we have the opportunity to greatly improve the healthcare industry.”
Another New Digital Disruptor 
Through our network on Linked In, we have found another new Digital Disruptor that has emerged in Austin, TX. Well Beyond Care was founded in 2014 by Jeffrey Frey. Like many founders of home care companies, Jeffrey found himself as the primary family caregiver for his mother after his brother died unexpectedly. According to a blog post on the web site, “he discovered the incredibly poor quality of care, the unfair wages given Caregivers, and the unreliable care given to his mother using private duty agencies. He was convinced there was a better way.”
The company uses technology to create a “virtual registry” model where the caregiver becomes an employee of the client. Well Beyond Care calls the client and caregiver a “care-pair.”
Using technology, the company promises five ways they are different from private duty home care companies:
- They will save a family between $10,000 and $30,000 per year.
- They will reduce caregiver no-shows and turnover.
- They will use proprietary tools to involve all family members.
- You get a Registered Nurse to assist you with using their web site.n (Called a Nurse Care-pair Manager)
- Since the caregiver is the employee of the client, they can be trained to do tasks that any family member can do, like dressing changes and medication management.
One of the features Well Beyond Care promotes on their web site is a Cost Savings Calculator. You put in some basic information about the services needed and the tool calculates the cost saving. Take a look and let us know what you think.
We would love to get some feedback from either clients of Well Beyond Care, or other home care owners in the Austin TX market who are competing with Well Beyond Care.
What Else is Happening with the Disruptors?
It’s been pretty quiet on the disruptor front since Home Hero called it quits back in February, and new start up disruptor Respect called in quits in August. We regularly ask our Mastermind Members and other contacts in California and Texas what they hear from Honor or Kindly Care. While Honor is still out there advertising and recruiting caregivers, we have heard very little from other home care company owners about their impact in the San Francisco, LA, or Dallas marketplaces. We did find some reviews on Yelp that are mixed … some five stars and some one star. If you have some first hand knowledge of what Honor is doing, we’d love to hear from you.
