Orientation question

I've just recently become an educator for a home health agency that specializes in my specialty (catastrophic injuries). Right now, we offer a one day in house orientation where we go over the basics (HR, staffing, history, etc), and then I take over and do education specifically on brain and spinal cord injuries. We also go over some of the supplies and equipment that might be seen in the home. The new employee then goes to the client's home to do anywhere from one to four days of training (depending on needs of the client). The problem we are running into is reaching all of our employees for the in house orientation. Sometimes we put them on a case (after they orient with that particular client) without having them come in for the in house orientation due to needs. Then they just never come to the orientation. Other times they live too far away (we cover three states), and can't make it. We've tried doing orientations where they live, but it's not working so well.

So my question is, how did orientation at your company go? Did you feel it was adequate? What would have made it better? One of our big goals, other than making sure new staff is comfortable caring for our clients, is that they feel like part of the team. How can we get them to come to orientation? We of course keep saying that we'll just make it mandatory, but that's difficult when it comes to home health.

Thanks :)