When the time comes to choose a care community for yourself or a loved one, the decision is fraught with anxiety and worry about choosing the right place. These concerns are well-founded. It often seems that the quality of care is declining as the cost of care is rising. What can you do to make sure that you feel as confident as possible in the standard of care being given?
As a senior placement referral agency, there are a number of tools that we use on a regular basis to examine the quality of a community. This is an ongoing process.
One community may have had a stellar reputation in the past, but new management or executives could impact its present condition. The opposite may be true as well. There are communities who have weathered a very poor reputation and have proven, with time, that they can provide the level of care and overall service that they promise. We endeavor to reexamine the communities as often as possible.
Listed below are some of the tools we utilize when we are evaluating communities, both large and small.
In person tours
Our goal is to visit and tour the communities as often as we can. We do a comprehensive intake and review of the level of care that is offered, staff retention, setting details, activity calendar, pricing and we often try to sample the food.
ODHS Facility search and complaint historyÂ
As registered placement agencies in the state of Oregon, it is required that each agency make this website available to their clients. Before making a referral to community, our team checks to make sure there are no recent complaints or violations since the last time we referred there. And when needed, we reach out to the management to determine what happened in the case of a listed violation and how the issue has been resolved.Â
Quality Measurement Program Report for Oregon Community-Based Care Facilities
This report is fairly new, and collects data on five required quality measures. This is the first time in Oregon history that facility residents, families and the public have access to facility performance, within the context of these quality measures. The report only lists Assisted Living and Residential Care facilities.
Testimonials from residents and families
As with all things in life, things can change quickly, even day to day. So while the state survey may reflect what was going on in a community when they visited 6 months ago, the daily activity may be very different at the time that you are considering making a move. With that in mind whenever possible, we try to speak with some of the residents and their families to understand what the daily experience is like. We take into account personal preferences of course; what one person enjoys about a community could be another’s chief complaint. But when it comes to the quality of the care, the reliability of the staff and the overall feel of life in the community, we want to hear firsthand from the people currently living there.
I'm often reminded how small this world can be. Even though there are hundreds, and depending on your location possibly thousands of care communities, everyone that works in and around the senior care space knows each other. As placement advisors, we connect with partners that we know may be frequenting some of the communities we recommend, such as in-home care agencies, physical and occupational therapists and mobile primary care physicians. They provide a professional perspective and may support us in the event we make an observation or recommendation that could improve the experience for everyone living and working in a care community.
Choosing a community for yourself or someone you love is one of the most stressful things you may do in your life. The hope is that we can provides some peace of mind in knowing the how and the why that our advisors use to make the best recommendations possible for your unique situation, and even that these tools even exist and are available to all.
We say, you don’t have to do this alone. Our team at Care and Keeping is here to help.
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