Questions You Should Ask Every Assisted or Senior Living Community

During my 30 years in senior living operations and sales I've failed to understand why families or future residents rarely ask detailed questions relating to management. Even more alarming is that the checklists many are using to assist with their decision-making process does not mention them.

Delivering consistent quality care and service in such a dynamic atmosphere is difficult. Imagine what it takes to provide quality meals, housekeeping, activities, maintenance, assistance with specific resident needs such as medications, bathing, grooming, mobility, emergency response, communication with physicians, pharmacies, families, therapists, hospice, home health and so much more 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Each residents needs and expectations are unique and changing. Residents and families trust the community team to deliver consistent service.

The importance of employee satisfaction is often overlooked. It directly impacts the quality of care and services delivered. It's simple, happy employees create happy residents and families.

Selecting the correct community can be a life or death decision There are many excellent checklists online. Most are extremely long and maynot be user friendly.

Remember people provide the services. I recommend you request the following information from each community you are considering. Refusing to provide this information is a RED flag.

1. List of department managers and tenure in their position (including the Executive Director)

2. List of open department manager positions, amount of time open.

3. Copy of employee and resident customer service survey results. It's critical to get both employee and resident results.

4. Copy of most recent state survey results ( if applicable). Ask the Executive Director to explain.

Good Luck with your search.

Rick D Watkins

rickd.watkins@gmail.com

Comments

Trust and Assisted Living

Trust and Assisted Living trust : to believe that someone or something is reliable, good, honest, effective, etc. : to have confidence in (someone or something) : to believe that something is true or correct : to hope or expect that something is true or will happen You might say entrusting an assisted living community with the care of your parents or loved one is the ultimate act of trust. It's common for the adult children of assisted living residents to live hundreds or thousands of miles away. It may have taken months or years to convince mother to make the move into an assisted living community. She isn't completely sold on the idea but is willing to give it a chance. It still sounds too good to be true; a community filled with loving people that will meet her every need and always have a smile on their face. It better be, because mom trusted your advice. The key to building a family "trust account" Imagine

Life Lessons Worth Sharing

What are your most valuable life lessons? One of the most important things we can do is pass along or share life's most important lessons in hope others will be wiser than we were. These are not in any particular order and I consider this a living blog. I am sure I will add, delete up date portions of this post as I continue to learn and experience. I would love your feedback and or hear about your most important life's lessons. Treat others as you would like to be treated . Its amazing how much this simple philosophy impacts you and others. This will certainly be different for each of us. Always do the rite thing . When faced with a decision just do the rite thing. If there are no guidelines or you must act quickly this a golden rule. It may not be the best decision but doing the rite thing can't be too bad. Gather the facts as best you can . This will normally lead you down the correct path. I use this when conducting investigations, resolving customer and

Are You Killing Success?

Throughout my career as a change agent, this quote by Tony Robbins or Henry Ford has been the simplest way to communicate the need to do things differently in order to achieve a different result. Many of us have had the good fortune to work with organizations that experienced remarkable success. They deservedly take great pride in the results of their blood, sweat and tears. As the years pass sustaining success becomes more challenging, yet some company's continue using the original formula that created their growth. Have you noticed as organizations grow some develop internal mini-organizations (much like our government) where even the smallest change may be dismissed or met with almost hostile resistance. Many times a great idea for improving employee engagement, service delivery or enhancing revenue, are only shared with closest friends at happy hour for fear they would be flagged as having a negative attitude. They've witnessed other brave souls share new ideas with

Life Lessons

Search This Blog