Wednesday, September 20, 2006

To help us go forward, we want you to design the course that would be most meaningful for you and your fellow colleagues. Therefore, we are starting this blog to identify the key issues and pivotal decision points that arise in the repositioning and reformation of an older community, as it revamps to face tomorrows market challenges.

The key issues that the CCRC and AARC leadership focus on are fairly typical, depending on where they are relative to their operational and historic timeline. For example, are they a new community? Are they an older community trying to defend their marketplace and reposition themselves? Are they small or large, poor or affluent, urban or rural? The issues may vary but they have a great deal in common.

Regardless of the circumstances and status of a given community, there are many important facets of successful communities that need to be considered if transitional communities seek to grow and sustain. They are: the overall market needs, marketing strategies, cost and availability of money, enabling / impacting legislation at state and federal levels, recruiting and retaining employees, liability exposure, and operational techniques as well as new service dimensions.

The paramount concern in all communities shifts, as does our economy. Issues shift as well when new cohort generations begin thinking about retirement. Therefore, state of the union in the senior industry is not static, but is constantly evolving. We have asked some key leaders in the CCRC industry (CEO’s) to define for us the following:

1.What are the five most important issues that concern you within your own community operation today?

2.What are the five most important issues that concern you within our senior retirement services industry today?

Our first guest commentator is Steve Shields, CEO of Meadowlark Hills in Manhattan Kansas. Steve is a well know visionary in the industry because of his passion to deinstitutionalize care service models and replace them with more personal home-like environments. Steve explains [with generic CCRC protocol and modeling],"we're not caring for our old, we’re warehousing them."

Steve, who has co-authored a book with LaVrene Norton, entitled, In pursuit of the Sunbeam – A practical Guide to Transformation from Institutional to Household, has written a dramatic and poignant directive regarding attitude and cultural change that he feels, personally, needs to be accommodated with a sense of urgency that is hard to refute.


Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting Steve Shields
CEO & President

Steve Shields is the President/CEO of Meadowlark Hills Retirement Community in Manhattan, Kansas and a sought-after national speaker and presenter on leadership and transformation in long-term care. Meadowlark has become a national leader in the creation of a resident-directed model and conducts day long education seminars on site to educate providers on the model and its application. Participants from 37 states and 12 foreign countries have utilized this experience to further deepen their culture change journeys. Shields is on the faculty of the Kansas State University’s Center on Aging where he teaches Leadership in Long-Term Care and is also on the Center’s Advisory Board. Shields is a member of the Pioneer Board. Shields provides presentations, retreats, and strategic planning services surrounding organizational transformation by nationally and internationally. Steve graduated from Kansas State University with a Bachelor of Science degree. Major: Social Work; Secondary Major Gerontology; Emphasis study: Long-Term Care Administration.

Contact Steve @ steve.shields@meadowlark.org



Listed below are Steve’s top issues of concern:



The top five issues that concern me about our community:

1) Adequate positioning of vision and execution in a way that keeps us relevant for the duration of our 30 year debt period.

2) Sustainable leadership philosophy integrated into daily action and behaviors - servant leadership, resource bearing service, thecommitment to growing leaders everywhere in the organization. How can we make it as natural in our skins as waking up in the morning instead of daily self-discipline? How can we make sure that our organizational character sustains and grows?

3) Maintaining and growing ability to diversify services and revenue sources to grow financial strength. This includes the ability to move well outside our walls and create a CCRC without walls that helps people maintain their residency in the homes in the community,yet have the advantages of enjoying the services that are currently enjoyed within CCRC walls.

4) Will medical research and product development overcome or substantially reduce conditions such as incontinence and Alzheimer’s? If so, how would we recover organizationally to ensure organizational viability and ability to respond to changing service needs?

5) Our ability to reverse the emphasis on services to the ill and redefine ourselves as a mecca for wellbeing. This, I believe,is our chief opportunity and challenge for the future.

Five Chief Concerns for the Industry

1) That the industry will continue to not recruit and grow sufficient leadership and vision to carry us into the next generation. There is a current void that raises the hair on your neck when fully contemplated.

2) The industry continues the "react when your sick" model versus the "partner with you to keep you well" model

3) State and national trade associations are not taking the lead in helping shift thinking but are rather remaining in middle of the road approaches primarily driven by the self interest of association growth and maintenance rather than focus on the elders and their needs, wants,and dreams.

4) The upcoming on slaught of elders, the potential future economic trends, and the lack of adequate financial planning for old age will press services to reverse growth which occurred for the present generation. i.e. the now large apartments and homes very much in demand will have to be shared with people who are not related to one another in order to be able to afford them. (This has plusses and minuses, but is only one example of the press that will be put on provider systems to be able to offer services to many more people who have fewer and fewer resources)

5) We continue to treat residents and staffs as commodities....it’s the cancer of our industry.

Steve



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