PHOENIX—If there was one good thing to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was “everyone opening the kimono,” being raw and asking for help, according to a panel of C-suite senior living experts who tackled issues affecting the sector on Tuesday during the second day of the Argentum 2024 Senior Living Executive Conference.
“We had to be collaborative, and we had to be vulnerable, and we had to show our imperfections,” Priority Life Care CEO Sevy Petras said. “I feel that the industry is getting back to the ‘before’ times, and we need to stop.”
Referencing the recent negative lay media scrutiny of assisted living, Petras said that what’s good for one is good for all, and what’s bad for one is bad for all. She encouraged fellow leaders to stop looking at each other as the competition and instead look at them as colleagues. Just as everyone celebrates success, she said, it’s just as important to pick up the phone and check in with peers in the industry when something negative happens.
Chris Hyatt, New Perspective Senior Living co-CEO, echoed Petras’ sentiment and encouraged leaders to “reach across the aisle.
“There’s not much we want back in the rear view mirror [of COVID], but one thing is to keep being innovative and share ideas,” Hyatt said.
Doing what’s right for residents and keeping them at the forefront of everything a community or company does wil prevent those barriers from going up and will continue to “make the industry what it needs to be,” according to Bryan McCaleb, president of Sagora Senior Living.
Improving the resident (and staff) experience
In that vein of improving the resident experience, Hyatt said, one of New Perspective’s major goals for the year was to revisit, reimagine and refine the employee experience.
One way the organization did that was to pivot from defense to offense. This year, the company is building out its customer relations management software for existing residents. The intent is to keep up with customer relations in house to track resident satisfaction.
Petras said the first 90 days after move-in are the most critical to keeping a resident long term. Residents provide a wealth of information during move-in that provides perspective on what’s important to them. Rather than just sharing that information with the life enrichment team, Priority Life shares it with dining, clinical and maintenance staff members so that resident preferences can be implemented right from the beginning.
Just as important as the resident experience is the staff experience, Petras said, adding that it’s important to provide staff members with the tools they need to do what they want to do: be with residents. Enabling that wish starts with having good capital partners who provide the resources so communities get those tools.
Providing staff development opportunities also helps employees identify career paths and succeed to whatever level they see as their future. Gall added that it also is important to help more people understand exactly what senior living is and how prospective employees’ skills can translate into a career in the industry.
Shaking things up … or not
The panel also discussed how the industry is handling dining and transportation issues, with some debate on whether to completely upend delivery models or maintain what seems to be working.
Petras said that many operators expect to serve meals the same way they always has done it, with set dining times in a communal dining center. That model, she said, is “stark and stoic,” adding that the industry needs to rethink how it handles dining.
Hyatt and McCaleb, on the other hand, said that although they don’t see the need for a complete overhaul, they’re not against reinvigorating the dining model by introducing options, such as pubs and cafes, and allowing residents to eat whenever they want to.
Merrill Gardens President Tana Gall said it’s important for communities to keep up with customer preferences, adding that she’s fielding “interesting” questions from prospective residents, including whether dining options include farm-to-table offerings.
“No. It’s from the Sysco truck,” she joked.
A similar debate ensued among panelists around how to handle transportation, something Gall said hasn’t changed in 30 years.
McCaleb said that until communities have jetpacks and helicopters, there aren’t many options other than a bus with a logo on the side that takes residents to the doctor’s office or the grocery store.
Gall said she had a thought-provoking moment when Merrill Gardens rolled out its middle-market brand, TrueWood by Merrill. Focus groups said that transportation was a must-have for a community. But today, she said, no one wants to get on a bus. With driverless cars and services that not only provide a ride but a person to walk a resident through the grocery store, expectations and options are changing, she said.
Hyatt said he’s considered a sort of ride-sharing service where sister communities share a bus or van. But he also said he is moving more toward a strong value-based care partnership with a goal of providing healthcare so residents don’t have to leave the community for doctor appointments.
Board changes
Also on Tuesday, Argentum formally announced the election of Judd Harper, president of The Arbor Company, as new chair of the board of directors. He most recently was vice chairman of the board.
Officers of the board also were named:
- Vice Chair Tana Gall, Merrill Gardens president
- Treasurer Gary Smith, Vi president
- Secretary Mercedes Kerr, Belmont Village Senior Living president
- Public Policy Chair Chris Hyatt, New Perspective Senior Living co-CEO
- Immediate Past Chair Joel Nelson, LCS CEO
New members of the board:
- Atria Senior Living CEO Holly Belter-Chesser
- RSF Partners Managing Director Sebastian Brown
- PGIM Real Estate Executive Director and Head of Seniors Housing Asset Management Jon Glass
- Integral Senior Living / Solstice Senior Living President and CEO Collette Gray
- Keppel CEO of Healthcare Kai Hsiao
- The Carlyle Group Managing Director Samara Madhany
- ReNew Chief Operating Officer Jay Morgan
- Commonwealth Senior Living President and Chief Operating Officer Earl Parker
- Curana Health CEO Mark Price
The meeting continues through today.
