Our Residents’ Voices Drive Our Actions

By Ann Walsh, Senior Vice President of Operations

True communication is full of opinions, input and compromise. We understand the importance of this reciprocal communication and explore ways we can amplify resident voices and make sure feedback continues to help guide our communities and organization.

Earlier this year, driven by the responses to our second annual resident engagement survey, we formed six resident focus groups at four communities – Abbey Delray South, Friendship Village of South Hills, Grand Lodge at the Preserve, and The Waterford.

From these focus groups, participants expressed two significant themes:

— A desire for more opportunities to provide input before organizational or communitywide decisions take effect.

— More personal communication from the home office to give better context and understanding of the initiatives we undertake.

We value resident involvement. In the new year, our hope is that an even greater number of residents will want to engage with us through these focus groups and other channels, and we’re working to identify areas where resident involvement can be most impactful on decisions made. The discussions we’ve had to date have already helped shape some of our plans for next year.

In 2019, we’ll also look to deepen our home office outreach, much like the tour John Couture, our vice president of information technology, led this year. John visited each community and shared an IT road map for our organization, giving you an overview of what to expect on the technology front. We plan to follow this approach with other key leaders to ensure residents are aware of what we’re working on, why it’s important and how it’ll impact their experience.

The success of our focus groups has also led us to explore the creation of a Resident Communications Advisory Committee. This committee, which would be made up of representatives from each community, would hold regular meetings with home office personnel to brainstorm ideas and help steer our direction.

Happy Holidays and thank you for your support as we continue to make strides in our communication efforts.

[In photo: Ann Walsh (left) with Eugenie Dorgilus, a certified nursing assistant at Abbey Delray South.]

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