For Lubna Ismail, president of a Cliffside Park home health aide business, time is crucial. If she can’t set up potential recruits with a client right away, they might sign on with someone else.
“When you’re ready to hire, sometimes they’ve already taken a position with another agency,” said Ismail, a Leonia resident who has been running a Right at Home franchise for three years. “It’s like, who can get to them first?”
Home health aides work with the elderly and the disabled, assisting them with basic tasks like bathing and dressing and performing limited clinical duties, including checking vital signs. In New Jersey and across the country, an aging population means that home health aides are in greater demand than ever.