Suzanne: And welcome back everyone to Answers for Elders Radio Network with Era Living senior staff. And we’re so excited to be talking to you about these amazing communities that are in the greater Seattle area, eight communities. And if you’re in the greater Seattle area, they have communities in Bellevue, Seattle, Mercer Island, Issaquah, all over the place. So we’re really excited obviously to talk a little bit about culture of this exceptional organization. And this is a person that really is at the linchpin to what makes these communities absolutely exceptional. And we are here with the Regional Director of Health and Wellness, Sarah Chimbanga, and Sarah, welcome to Answers for Elders.
Sarah Chimbanga: Thank you.
Suzanne: Sarah, I would say the quality of care — even though it’s something that people kind of pass over and they don’t want to talk about it — that’s the core. That’s why, if you’re in assisted living, if you’re in memory care or something like that, you’re needing assistance in many ways. This is a time when people are at their most vulnerable in their lives. So tell me a little bit about how you work with families in this move-in process, in this orientation process, to make sure they feel comfortable, and that their needs are going to be met.
Sarah Chimbanga: We understand that any move is stressful. There’s a lot of factors that go into that. So our goal as a team is how can we make the transition as smooth as possible, and how can we make sure that we are equipping the resident and family or the representative for success in any of our communities. So our move-in process is pretty extensive. I’d like to think of it as a two part.
The first part is where we solicit information from the resident’s provider, because we want to get a feeling for what are some of the medical conditions that maybe the resident is going through, and the things that we can help manage in our setting. And then we also look at the resident’s functional needs.
So when we do the in-person assessment with the resident, we talk about things that we all do on a daily basis. How are you doing with dressing? How are you doing with showers? All of the plans of care that we put into place are very individualized. So we make sure if it’s Sarah that’s moving in, and we’re providing dressing assistance for Sarah, we wanna make sure that it’s to Sarah’s liking. “I wanna wake up in the morning at usually eight, I go to bed usually at nine.” That way, we’re making sure that we’re not too disruptive, that move in. But then we’re also making sure that we’re able to take care of our residents.
Suzanne: And obviously each person, their needs are as unique as a snowflake. There’s nothing alike, right? So you’re dealing with a lot of detailed information, a lot of specifics about maybe someone’s ability to be mobile, making sure that where they’re living is going to be supportive for them. It’s kind of a full evaluation, is it not,?
Sarah Chimbanga: It is. And we gather a lot of really sensitive information, and a lot of protected information, and we wanna be cognizant of that. So when we have residents reserve, they sign a confidential release information, and we share that with the providers from whom we’re getting information. And even when we ourselves are handling that information, we make sure it’s not anything that anyone outside of that assessment process can access. When you’re asking someone about their day-to-day activities, that can be pretty sensitive. And so what we always try to do during the assessment is build a relationship of trust. If you’re gonna be forthcoming with your needs, there needs to be that level of trust first, So we try to establish that. All of this is in an effort to make sure that your move is as smooth as possible and that your needs, we know that are going to evolve, that we can still help meet them along that journey.
Suzanne: Sure. And obviously you do different levels of care in different types of community. Obviously that that’s different types of licensing, it’s different types of expertise. Would you kind of give me an overview about what that looks like?
Sarah Chimbanga: Yeah, so each of our communities has a disclosure of services, and that is a state document that most facilities have that says, here are the things that we can and cannot do, and sometimes provide a little bit of clarification as to what that entails. But we use that document and share that with residents and with families to say. here are all of the things that we can do from the beginning when we do the assessment, some for example may move in just needing very minimal services. “I only need help with my compression stockings,” for example. And over time, maybe that progresses to, “I now need help with more of my my shoes,” maybe. So as residents progress and as they age in place, the way our license is set up is we’re able to go and be able to provide more and more care. And the beauty about our type of licensing, which is flexible licensing, you don’t have to move out of your apartment once you start to need care.
Suzanne: And that’s important for couples. Very important to keep mom and dad together.
Sarah Chimbanga: I think a lot of residents find comfort in that, because we know just the moving itself into the community is big and it’s stressful. But to know that should I need help, and once I start to need help, the help will come to me, I think that is an added benefit.
Suzanne: Absolutely, of our not having to move, not having to have a situation where, if wife is experiencing dementia and husband is not, you don’t have to be separated, that’s important. And certainly the most dignified and way to treat someone with dignity, as you do. And obviously you guys, when you do help assisted living, a lot of people don’t understand what all the services are. I would just love for you to just kind of share with people a little bit about what does assisted living mean and what does memory care mean?
Sarah Chimbanga: So assisted living is primarily where we provide assistance with what we call activities of daily living. So these include most exercises and most activities that we all do on a regular basis. So, dressing and eating and mobility, how do we get in and out of bed. How do we get in and out of chairs, meals, and meal reminders. We do also health management in helping our resident manage medical appointments, manage their overall health and well being.
And then in two of our communities, we have memory care, where if a resident, in addition to needing assistance with activities of daily living, now also might need more support from a memories team, they might have maybe a diagnosis of dementia that requires a different set of skills. So you’re able to provide both both memory care and also assisted living services within our two communities that have memory care. And then the other communities that do not, the beautiful piece about it is we’re also able to refer in house, and have that same expertise as well.
Suzanne: Yeah. And obviously you do a thorough assessment up front, but then we all change, we all evolve. So you do reassessments periodically. How do you define what you do?
Sarah Chimbanga: Yes. So we do the pre- move-in assessment, and from that we try to gather and gauge what are some of the services that we think a resident might need coming in. We also know that once you actually start to provide the care, once the residents actually start to receive the care, that there might be some tweaks that need to be made. So we usually do another assessment two weeks after moving in. And then following that, we do one every six months or whenever there’s a change in condition.
Suzanne: And obviously, if they are ever hospitalized or something like that, you reassess before they come back into the community. I’m assuming that goes on as well?
Sarah Chimbanga: That is correct. So if any of our residents were to go to the hospital, we work with the resident, we work with the family, we work with your representative and also the hospital in trying to put together a plan of care that will meet their needs at that time, so that we can facilitate another smooth transition back to the community.
Suzanne: Absolutely. And Sarah, you talk about the care team. Family members are obviously very much involved. How do you work with family?
Sarah Chimbanga: We consider our families as part of the care team, and because of that, a lot of our residents do have families, some may not, but we also understand it takes a community to take care of a resident. A lot of families help support the residents with appointments, whether it’s outside the community, they help with being the bridge or the advocate between the resident and their providers. So we found that it’s really critical to include them any time we’re discussing the care. So, for example, during the move-in process, a lot of families — if the resident chooses — do participate during that assessment. Because one of the things that we’re trying to do is to say what can we as a community provide, how and what can the family also provide, or want to provide? And together, we kind of mesh those two: Here’s what family is providing here is what our community is providing, and here’s what the resident wants, because we always again try to keep the resident as the center of that.
Suzanne: I learned in the course of taking care of my mom when she was in assisted living. Number one, I needed to have a list of all of her current medications, and sometimes I didn’t know that there had been a change. That was really important, that I built a relationship with the health care team at her community, so that they had that information to me. If they got a change, they would let me know, because my mom wouldn’t let me know, she wouldn’t know. And so those are things I think that being in touch with the director of nursing in their community is so important and I think that’s something that you guys do so well with the attention to detail. I know that there’s so many things that we don’t even think about every day that you guys absolutely pay attention to, those details.
So, Sarah, it’s been such an honor to have you on the program and guess what? We’re gonna have another segment coming up. And Sarah, you’re gonna stay with us for the next segment.
Sarah Chimbanga: Sounds good.
