“You Can’t Teach Kindness”: Lia Smith on Home Care in San Diego

Choosing home care means trusting someone with a loved one's daily routines, comfort and sometimes complex medical needs.

For Lia Smith, CEO of TruCare Nursing & Home Care Solutions in San Diego, that trust starts with experience, clinical support and kindness.

Lia began at 22 as a certified nursing assistant in a skilled nursing setting, moved into private duty care while expecting her first daughter, and worked her way through an agency office as receptionist, recruiter, staffer, marketer and manager. By the time she was running a home care business she understood the work from both the client's home and the office coordinating it.

She founded A Better Solution in 2000, first helping other agencies fill staffing gaps, later serving clients directly and building a franchise system. The San Diego office took the TruCare name to separate the local operation from that franchise network. It is not a franchise location, and the familiar staff stayed through the change.

What the conversation covers:

• Registered nurse oversight and licensed vocational nursing alongside companion care, including wound care, feeding tubes and prescribed IV antibiotics at home
• Why a nurse who knows the person can spot changes, explain them to the family and talk to their healthcare providers
• How nurses help evaluate client needs and judge whether a caregiver is the right fit
• Hiring: a year of experience required, roughly one hire per five interviews, and a standard that comes down to whether Lia would trust that person with her own mother
• A free assessment before any discussion of cost, and organising support around a family's actual budget
• Helping veterans and their families work out which benefits may apply
• Her work with CAHSAH, the San Diego Regional Home Care Council and SCORE

Asked what makes a great caregiver, Lia did not hesitate:

"You can teach a skill set. You can't teach kindness."