The mission of True Care Living is to provide unparalleled excellence of care and amenities to Michigan’s lower income seniors. To accomplish our goal, True Care Living will develop programs and staffing tailored specifically to service the unique needs of our residents.
True Care Living will establish a well-trained Med Office with a dedicated Med Tech 24 hours a day. To ensure quality of care, True Care Living will create systems of collaboration between our med room and local medical and social resources. Many local resources will be contracted to come to the residents for their convenience in the comfort of their home, True Care Living, on a regular schedule and as needed. Visiting doctors and specialists, contracted 24-hour pharmacy that delivers, ancillary services like x-ray and labs, individual and group psychiatric therapies, various support groups, physical and occupational therapies, as well as nursing services can all be brought in-house to ensure comfort, convenience, quality, and collaboration of care. By tracking our residents’ care and needs daily on our Electronic Medical System, we will create a system of accountability to service their regular needs as well as stay ahead of any changes of condition. To ensure a higher standard, our Med office staff will be comprised almost exclusively of trained Pharmacy Technicians, Medical Assistants, and Licensed Vocational Nurses and will be led by a dedicated Director to whom all Med Office and Care Shifts will report. The Med Office Director will give direct oversight and be responsible for training, staffing, directing, and maintaining systems of care and collaboration within True Care and with its outside providers.
As important as the seniors’ medical care is, the seniors’ mental, spiritual, and social well-being is no less important for “mankind does not live on bread alone” (Deuter. 8:3). Creating activity programs and spaces that engage the residents’ minds and soul is of paramount importance. Activities including exercise, music, games, art, on-screen and live entertainment, religious services and trips can do as much to promote good health as good medical care. To this end, our Activity Director will create and maintain a dependable schedule of activities that are meaningful and engaging to our residents with the assistance of the caregiving staff. True Care’s facilities will have common areas that cater to different activities, such as an activity center, library and art room, gaming room, and movie theater room. The results will be engaged and active seniors who are of healthier body and mind. The quality of food, service, and cheerful disposition in which it is provided is immeasurably important to resident happiness. Therefore upgrading our kitchen, dining room amenities, as well as hiring, training, and developing good kitchen and dining room staff for the purpose of providing three nutritious and delicious daily meals, snacks, and appealing hydration options will be a must of True Care Living. Taking daily meal attendance and tracking intake will also help to gauge the success of our meal plan and service.
The facility’s physical well-being plays a major role in the residents’ well-being. The facility’s well-being will be more than the expression “anything dirty cleaned and anything broken fixed” it will have a good measure of modern comfort. Temperature control, comfortable and well-furnished rooms, lounges and common areas, cable TV and internet access are as necessary as cleanliness and function.
Round the clock care giving is one of the most integral services provided by True Care Living to ensure help will always be there when the need arises. As such, caregivers will receive extensive training and staff development to ensure they are properly prepared for their lofty task of direct care. It is in the caregiving that residents feel they have a direct connection with staff and True Care as a whole. If done right, specific needs such as laundry services, bathing assistance, hygiene care, dressing, or continence care can promote a resident’s dignity, feeling of self, independence, and it can fulfill our more dependent residents’ need for connection and care. For this reason, regular training in promoting residents’ dignity and independence, safe assistance and transfer, proper boundaries, customer service, and more are a must. Because caregiving is the most direct care provided, caregivers are the staff the residents connect with most. Caregivers are also the best way for our Med Office and administration to keep up with the changing needs of our residents. As such, caregivers will be trained to report changes of condition and be charged with submitting a completed checklist at the end of daily scheduled care sessions on our EM R’s Care Suite. Certain responses will generate a flagged report to True Care’s Med Office and Administration so all departments can collaborate in providing the proper care when needed. In this way, we are promoting accountability among our caregivers and staying on point with our residents’ needs.
Residents’ rooms and common areas will be on a regular schedule of daily cleaning and tidying, as well as on a regular schedule of deep cleaning. Housekeepers will be accountable through a daily log that they will maintain and submit with their daily scheduled services, times, and signatures to our head of maintenance. For example, every day a housekeeper will come in to each room to make the bed, empty waste baskets, replace used towels, tidy up and clean anything immediately necessary. Deep cleaning will occur every 7 to 10 days where housekeeping will replace linens, and clean all surfaces, windows, and floors.
As Julie Andrew says, “Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.” At the beginning of every good care community is the residents that live there. Every resident’s needs must be thoroughly assessed prior to admission to ascertain if their individual needs are within our level of care and create an appropriate plan of care to meet those specific needs. For example, a resident’s caregiving schedule, dietary restrictions, or regular specialty clinic appointments would be included in resident pre-admission assessments. The importance of these assessments cannot be underscored enough, for they ensure each resident is within True Care’s ability to care for them and that their unique needs already have a plan of care directing our efforts from day one. These assessments, as well as physician’s reports, will be redone annually or added to whenever there is a change of condition.