siness
n some ways, 38-year-old
Richard Bloom thinks of
himself as the main char-
acter in the political satire
Dave.
Dave worked at a
placement service and
found fulfillment by helping
others find jobs.
Mr. Bloom has discovered the
same rewards hi a similar busi-
ness. The Detroit native prac-
ticed law for nearly a decade
before developing his own tem-
porary help agency, Exchange
Services.
"We have hundreds of em-
ployees who depend on us for
work," he says. 'We have a huge
responsibility to them. Com-
pared to practicing law, I real-
ly enjoy what I do. It's the main
focus of my life."
Eight years ago, Mr. Bloom
and his partner, attorney
Robert Canner, started Ex-
change Services, which began
as an agency employing nurses
to supplement the staffs of lo-
cal hospitals and elder care fa-
cilities.
Facilities, including Jewish
Home for Aged's Borman Hall,
call upon Exchange Services
when they need extra nursing
staff. Health Exchange, in turn,
contacts nurses and aides from
its ranks of more than 800 nurs-
es — all of whom have been
screened, trained and tested by
agency staff.
Exchange Services has
boomed since the mid-1980s.
The agency now provides tem-
porary jobs in the areas of sup-
plemental nursing, clerical and
light industrial, technical and
private-duty home care.
Mr. Bloom reports that sales
doubled in the late 1980s and
will rise to nearly $7 million this
year.
These days, private duty
home care, the agency's Home-
Health Exchange division, is
the prime focus of Mr. Bloom's
dreams. The division, not even
a year old, assigns nurses, nurs-
ing aides and companions to
Richard Bloom and Robert Canner brpg
private duty nursing care into the 199
RUTH UTTMANN STAFF WRITER
Richard Bloom, CEO of Exchange Services.
home-bound patients who are
sick or recuperating. Compan-
ions perform non-medical tasks
like helping someone to bathe,
eat and use the bathroom.
"Home health care is the fu-
ture of health care in this coun-
try," Mr. Bloom says.
Statistics published by the
National Association For Home
Care show there were 11,097
home care agencies in the Unit-
ed States in 1989. Today, that
number has risen to 13,951.
The association estimates
that some 6 million Americans
require home care because of ill-
ness, long-term health condi-
tions or permanent disabilities.
It reports that annual expendi-
tures for home care are expect-
ed to total more than $21 billion
this year.
Still, home care is less ex-
pensive than institutionalized
care, Mr. Bloom says. Insurance
agencies and medical facilities,
in an attempt to reduce costs,
have cut patients' hospital
stays.
According to the National As-
sociation For Home Care, na-
tional expenditures for personal
health care will exceed $800 bil-
lion in 1993. Nearly two-thirds
goes for hospital care and physi-
cians' services. Home care ex-
penditures comprise only a
small fraction of national health
spending.
At Sinai Hospital, the assis-
tant vice president of nursing,
Gladeen Ayer, said, "There re-
ally aren't any disadvantages
to home health care.
"It saves the community
health care dollars. It helps the
family to learn the care, and it
reduces readmissions because
someone is in the home helping
the patient follow through with
the protocol prescribed by the
doctor," Ms. Ayer said.
Martha Mueller of Royal Oak
believes the agency helped her
through a difficult time when
her husband and her father be-
came ill. A HomeHealth Ex-
change companion performed
light housework, cooked and
tended to Ms. Mueller's ailing
relatives in their homes.
"I think that the primary
thing I received from the ser-
vice was that, when I had to be
away from both my husband
and my father when they were
ill, I was confident that they
were well taken care of. It gave
me peace of mind," she said.
Exchange Services operates
its HomeHealth division out of
its offices in Southfield and
Bloomfield Hills. Mr. Bloom
and Mr. Canner hope to create
a niche for their company in the
northern suburbs.
"Both Rick and I live in West
Bloomfield. We know the area
and see that there is a need to
be addressed. The demograph-
ics indicate an aging population
and growing Jewish population
in the northwestern suburbs,"
he said.
The competition is stiff —
and bound to get stiffer with the
implementation of President
Bill Clinton's health care re-
forms, Mr. Bloom says. He an-
ticipates that such reforms,
which aim to encourage cost-
cutting, will boost the demand
for home care, and thus flood
the market with providers like
himself.
"The major way we're going
to compete is, number one, hav-
ing the highest quality of nurs-
ing care," he says. "We're going
to try to keep our focus narrow