We can't wait to meet you!
Until then, learn why we love working with Family Care patients.
Our Management Team
Mohammed A Ahmed MD, MS, Founder/CEO
Dr. Mohammed “Aziz” Ahmed,, became interested in senior care when he completed his Master’s thesis at the University of Michigan, focusing on End-of-Life Issues among Minority Populations. He placed an emphasis on programs that would improve patient quality of life and reducing hospital readmissions. Aziz lives with his wife and two sons.
Hear from Our Employees
Jenifer, RN
Bullhead City
How long have you worked for Family Care? What is your title?
I’ve been in home health for over six years, and I’ve worked for Family Care for a year and half. My title is registered nurse.
What do you do in an average day?
I see a lot of patients! In my average day, I go into patient homes, do education regarding disease processes, coordinate care with physicians, and ensure that quality care is given to my patients.
Is there anything that surprises people about your job?
A large part of what I do is coordinating care with physicians. There’s cardiologists, pulmonologists, nephrologists, all kinds of physicians that patients see, but that don’t necessarily communicate with each other. It’s my job to make sure the doctors know what’s going on with the patient, to prevent a duplication in their health care. I catch a lot of things by doing that, and help people that would otherwise get dropped between the cracks with their healthcare. Hospitals will order a lot of changes, but the primary physician won’t always know what’s happened. It’s my job to communicate new orders or inform them that the patient is in the hospital. Once you get that going, you might find out that the patient has already tried that medication, or that those medications aren’t working for them anymore. Keeping those lines of communication open starts a very important conversation.
What do you find most rewarding about your job?
It’s rewarding when you can see what you’re teaching your patients really click. They begin to understand the importance of taking their medications or completing their treatments. I also love helping them feel heard. They see me call their doctors’ offices, and call and call until I get an answer for them. Often, they don’t feel listened to when it comes to their health. They go to the doctor, tell the doctor what’s wrong, and nothing changes. They go again, tell them again, nothing changes. Whereas when doctors are hearing from a nurse, it jumpstarts action from their doctor’s office. When we go in and talk to the doctor, changes can actually occur.
Jaci, RN
Bullhead City
How long have you worked for Family Care?
I’m a registered nurse. I’ve worked for Family Care for a little over a year and a half.
What do you do in an average day?
There’s nothing average about home health and hospice. I see patients and take care of patients according to their specific needs. I could see anywhere from one to five patients in a typical day, and if we have more, I’ll see more—it all depends. I could see home health patients and do disease process education, blood draws, or vitals checks. On the opposite side, I could be seeing a hospice patient or a new patient coming on to hospice service, and I’ll be explaining the process of being in hospice. I could be at end-of-life with a patient, or I could be reiterating to a family what the transition process is like. And sometimes, I’m doing all of that on the same day!
Why do you like home health?
I like the diversity of my job, and I enjoy caring for patients in their own environment. I feel like it’s a little less tense. People are more relaxed in their homes than in the hospital. They’re sometimes surrounded by their families, which is a very different environment. It’s a much more personal and personable experience. When you go to the hospital, everyone’s wearing a gown, everyone’s hooked up to machines. You get more of a feel for who your patients are when you go into their homes.
How can you tell when you’ve made a difference in a patient’s life?
With patients and their families, if they don’t openly tell you that they’re doing better, you can see their progress. You may have an older patient who’s very stern and set in their ways who doesn’t want to change what they’re doing. But over the course of their care period, you can see them changing how they eat to help their disease process, or checking their blood pressure before taking a medicine, or having fewer falls, or doing things to live more independently to care for themselves. When they would previously say, “I don’t know what to do, I’m going to the ER,” now they know to stay home and they know how to handle it.
They’re always grateful that a nurse and the care team has been in there to help them. You can see a change in a patient by what they’ve learned from their time with you. Ultimately, I love my job, and I love helping people! I love to watch them grow as individuals. When you can help patients stay out of the hospital after having been in and out for six months, that’s a good feeling. It’s a great reward to see them doing better!
Mayen, RN
Las Vegas
How long have you worked for Family Care?
About 4 years.
What do you do in an average day?
I visit patients in their homes and teach them how to manage their conditions.
What’s the most rewarding part of your job?
When my patients achieve success, when they see improvement with their chronic conditions, or when they tell me they couldn’t make it without me, that’s very rewarding for me. I became a nurse to help people, and I get to know my patients over many months. I know them, their families, and their problems, and I’m involved with every part of their lives—the social and the health aspects.
What piece of advice would you give other nurses?
Show compassion and care for patients. You become a nurse to help people, to be a good advocate for people, and you enjoy your job because of that. Be a good listener and a good friend to your patients, that’s probably the most important part.
Christy, ST
Las Vegas
How long have you worked with Family Care?
It’s been about 3 years now. I’m a speech therapist.
What does the average day in your job look like?
When I do have a patient, I may have one or two at a time at the most. I go to see them one to two times a week. Mainly it’s working with patients in their home, either following up with them and trying to return to their prior level of function, with a regular diet and liquids. Or if it’s a patient who has had a stroke, so they have aphasia, that loss of language, it’s working on helping them improve their communication skills so they can be independent in their daily tasks.
How do you know when you’ve done a good job? What do you find rewarding about your job?
Most of the time, we know we’ve done a good job for two reasons: if the patient doesn’t need my services anymore because they’re back to that prior level of functioning, or if it’s becoming easier for them to communicate. Those with a stroke or a brain injury won’t get back to exactly what they were like before, but if we can get to a point where communication isn’t as laborsome, they aren’t being misunderstood, we’ve made progress. If they can maintain the relationships that are important to them, that’s the goal for communication in elderly individuals.
Do you have any advice for how people can protect their speech or hearing skills?
Hearing is probably the easiest of the two to protect. That’s affected by loud noises, so reducing exposure to loud noises could help. If they do feel like they’re having difficulty hearing or frequently asking people to repeat themselves, they should get an audiological exam to test their hearing. We know from research and literature that individuals who have hearing loss at an older age are at an increased risk of dementia because they feel a self-limiting isolation, they become less active or aren’t participating in life. “You use it, or you lose it,” so hearing is very important to maintaining communication skills.
One thing people are more concerned with is maintaining those brain skills as they age, I encourage them to use the strategies they learned a long time ago because they’re very effective. Keep a calendar of things that are important, write in a journal, write down the instructions people tell them, so they have a record of what they’re supposed to do and can refer back to it, eliminate distractions when they’re completing tasks. The more you have to multitask, the more the brain has to work. If you eliminate some of that chatter, sometimes individuals function better as they age.
Lisa, LPN
Las Vegas
What’s your position? What do you do?
I’m an LPN (Licensed Practical Nurse) My job is to go into patients’ homes to help keep them out of the hospital. I do overall assessments for patients—I check their medication, do skin checks, do teaching on disease processes and medication, and get to know the patients on a personal level to make sure there’s nothing else we could be doing for them.
How long have you been with the company?
Two years.
What do you find rewarding about your job?
I worked in a hospital for years, and there you have 10 to 12 patients at a time, which limits how much time you can spend with individuals. With home visits, there’s a lot of one-on-one time to sit and chat with your patients. A lot of them look forward to the visits because they live alone or don’t have any family. Providing that companionship to patients, getting to spend 45 minutes to an hour with them every week, builds rapport and trust with them.
Is there anything that lets you know you’ve done a good job? Anything that makes you feel rewarded?
Oh yes! Patients call and ask questions all the time. It may not be urgent or totally necessary, but they learn to trust your judgment over time and really respect your input.
At Christmastime, one of my patients made a puzzle, which was really good rehabilitation work for her upper body and arms. She worked on it for a long time, glued it together, and had it framed for me as a Christmas present. I have it hanging on my wall now—it made me feel rewarded and like I was doing a good job.
Is there anything you wish people knew about your job? Anything that surprises people when you talk about your job?
Lots of patients don’t understand what Medicare can offer to them, or what we can provide them. As nurses, we try to go above and beyond the call of duty. Some agencies get a lot of things through donations or social workers. I remember I had a patient who’d been denied a shower chair by Medicare, and was using an overturned plastic garbage can instead. I drove out to a business this woman owns—she has medical equipment, gauze, diapers, anything you could need for nursing—and got my patient a shower chair. We really try to go above and beyond and take it upon ourselves to provide what our patients need.