New technology tools now give senior living community teams an easy way to immediately improve connection with families. And the cost-benefit is so alarmingly positive, it’s a no-brainer for all Executive Directors (EDs) to consider this year.
Ask any ED about their goals for this new year and ‘creating community’ is surely on that list. After all, a strong sense of community makes it easier to attract new residents and staff, gain referrals and sustain higher levels of retention and participation.
If your community team is like most, they spend a lot of time creating the things that bring people together like a full activity calendar and tasty meals served daily. These actions go a long way toward fostering a sense of community for those on-site.
But what about the larger and oftentimes more influential community members that don’t get to experience the hard work your team delivers day-to-day?
Family plays such a huge role in community satisfaction, occupancy and retention rates, but are often overlooked unless they visit. Family members who don’t visit miss experiencing first-hand the quality of life your community delivers. And are often the most difficult to deal with (more on this below!)
As you put your plan together for the new year, please consider expanding your sense of community building to include all family members – even the far flung ones who rarely if ever visit.
Because Communication Leads to Community
Communicating regularly with resident families improves many of the performance metrics you’re being asked to deliver. Here are the top four benefits EDs tell us implementing a family outreach program delivers:
1. Improve Family Satisfaction
Resident families hold the keys to accelerating satisfaction with your community. Their happiness with how you care for their loved one determines whether they advocate positively or negatively on your behalf. And these days, their voices are heard far and wide via the internet.
In emotionally charged decisions like moving in and continuing to reside, seeing is believing. It’s why visits and tours of your community are such an essential part of securing new residents. But maintaining high levels of satisfaction and keeping family’s feelings of guilt at bay requires a continued, persistent campaign to promote the positive aspects of daily life.
Implementing a regular family outreach program – to more than just local family who visits regularly – improves your community’s satisfaction ratings. Family will feel more connected, less is the dark and less powerless when they receive timely ADL updates and visual proof of their parent’s happiness through shared pictures and videos. And ultimately, they’ll be more confident that the level of care meets or exceeds their expectations.
Until now, implementing such an outreach program required a lot of manual effort that many communities simply could not afford. But new technology, like the caregiver collaboration app Outpatient we’ve created, gives communities an accessible, compliant and easy to implement solution.
2. Increase Resident Retention
Failure to meet family member expectations with the level of on-going care and quality of life is an often cited reason for moving their parent out. Helping family members – even those thousands of miles away – stay connected, in the know, and up to date with daily life activities helps eliminate phantom concerns that take hold in the absence of information.
Sharing regular glimpses into their parent’s experience in your community helps demonstrate you continue to care about their loved one. Families feel more bonded with the experience, empowered by the regular updates in feeling a part of managing care, and satisfied with the partnership and value your team delivers in looking after their loved ones.
3. Retain More Staff
Being a professional caregiver takes a special combination of skills, compassion and selflessness. Finding qualified staff is really hard. In this difficult recruiting job market, retaining staff is critical for maintaining the quality service your community delivers.
Aging is not easy, and residents respond differently to this late stage of life. It’s unfortunately not uncommon for frontline staff to feel they’re in an emotionally-charged, thankless job. In fact, feeling unappreciated is one of the top reasons senior living caregivers quit.
Connecting some of your team with resident families can be a fantastic way to increase their job satisfaction. Too often, a legitimate fear of legal risk inhibits connecting caregivers with families. But new technology makes it easy to configure access levels for appropriate staff, saving time and improving relationships on both sides.
With a tool like Outpatient, your team will feel more connected and appreciated, less stressed by avoiding multiple emails and/or lengthy games of telephone tag, and ultimately more satisfied in the great work they do each day.
4. Mitigate Risk of Lawsuit
At a recent California Assisted Living Association meeting in Palm Springs, one of the organization’s founders (and the industry’s leading legal authority) shared that lawsuits against senior living communities are most often initiated by the most distant adult child. With no first hand experience nor personal relationship with staff, these far flung relatives are the most likely to sue.
Building relationships with all family members through a caregiver collaboration app like Outpatient is a tangible action EDs can now easily implement. Empowering caregiver teams to share visible proof of positive, daily quality of life experiences and to increase connection help family members feel engaged with a more balanced / holistic view of their loved one’s life.
Summary
Building community beyond the walls of your property with distant resident family members is essential for improving your community’s satisfaction, occupancy, and retention rates. Communicating regularly with these family members – particularly those who don’t visit often – is key to strengthening the sense of community and improving the ultimate success at your community.
Showcasing the positive, day-to-day experiences your team delivers – by sharing a picture of mom winning the card game or participating in a dance class – are fantastic ways to engage families and help them feel connected, in control and in the know. Your team is already doing the hard part by creating activity and dining experiences. Taking the time to promote and share resident’s participation with their families will extend the value of your team’s important work.
New technology tools (like Outpatient – the caregiver collaboration app) now make it easy for caregiving teams to build stronger bonds with resident families. The most successful communities provide their teams with these tools to communicate and collaborate with resident families.
If you are interested in learning how our mobile app can help you improve community satisfaction, retention, and productivity, call us at 415-849-0040 or send us an email at [email protected]. We’d love to learn more about your community and whether we can help you and your team.
