A Great Idea from Mayo Clinic for Senior Housing and Services
Building community and Building Trust: those things are at the core of what any good senior housing provider is doing.Here’s a good idea for our profession:Mayo Clinic is tapping into its customers to help it build community and share the community with the larger world. Word of mouth - It’s a lot cheaper - and more effective - than any advertising. Mayo has launched 'Sharing Mayo Clinic'Mayo treats more than 500,000 people yearly. A lot of people have very positive experiences there - and no doubt some have negative ones. Mayo’s new blog is opening the door to people to discuss both. Learn more about it from Dr. Thoralf Sundt, a heart surgeon and chair of Mayo’s marketing committee who was interviewed by the Rochester Post Bulletin:
More than 90 percent of people who comment about Mayo give praise, Sundt says, and each person with a good experience tells 40 other people about it.Now, Sundt says, 'we’re just sort of giving them the platform to share.' The blog is monitored for language and content. But, in general, Mayo wants an open forum that accepts most comments.Mayo officials also hope for suggestions about how to improve quality of service. They expect patients to share tips about how to best use time between appointments, and about Mayo services.'The quality of the experience is key,' Sundt said. (THAT STATEMENT BY DR. SUNDT IS GOLD.)
Our Pledge to You Mr. President
To Changing Aging Readers: If you have a message you’d like to leave for President Obama, please leave it in the comments section below. Thank you!
Godspeed, Mr. President.
We at Ecumen wish you all the best as you lead our country in this historically challenging time.
As we look to you and your fellow policymakers to lead positive change and transformation in Washington, D.C., we pledge to you that we will do our part to collectively drive change and innovation in aging services. At Ecumen, we envision a world in which aging is viewed and understood in radically different ways.
As you have stated, long-term economic recovery cannot be achieved without reforming entitlement programs. We will continue to advocate for long-term care financing reform that marries personal and collective responsibility to help people age and live empowered lives in communities they love. We know this country has huge obstacles, but no great opportunity has been seized without signficant hurdles. We pledge to help the communities we serve and this country rise to new heights and seize new opportunities.
We are in this together.
Martin Luther King: Transformation and Changing Aging
'We must use time creatively.'
'Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.''The quality, not the longevity, of one’s life is what is important.'Martin Luther King practiced what he preached. Change. It can happen. And people are the ones who drive it.Today we honor one of this world’s greatest changemakers: Martin Luther King. Tomorrow, the first African-American first family will move into the White House - a house that was built with slave labor. America has great capacity for change and moving beyond the status quo.As Martin Luther King said, 'You don’t have to see the full staircase, just take the first step.' In 'changing aging,' we always have to remember to just take the first step.
Sandpoint Idaho Church’s Senior Housing Fosters Aging in Community
Sandpoint, Idaho is becoming known for more than its stunning natural beauty and for being the headquarters of the Coldwater Creek clothing retailer. It’s also becoming a great place to age in community' and provides a model for churches to expand intergenerational connections and ministries.You’ve heard the phrase 'age in place.' Pastor Dave Olson and the congregation of Luther Park of Sandpoint is looking at that phrase a bit more broadly. They just opened Luther Park of Sandpoint, a congregational senior housing community that is physically connected to First Lutheran Church. The new community was developed by Ecumen and is managed by Ecumen.It is designed as a 'catered living' community, so that a person can move in and simply add a la carte services as he or she needs them rather than having to relocate. It also has memory care and enhanced care services, so that the person can stay in the community when he or she needs more intensive care.Pastor Olson, in a recent interview with the Bonner County Daily Bee newspaper shared these thoughts:
'One of my goals was that this would not be an elder ghetto,' Olson said. 'Too often, our elders are separated from the rest of society. We’re overlapping our seniors with the First Lutheran Church preschool program and we’ve designed this [Luther Park] so it can be used for public events, concerts and recitals as a way to bring the community inside.'At the same time, the church community is growing as new residents move in. An indoor causeway physically connects Luther Park and the First Lutheran Church. While churches around the world wring their hands over the impact of aging congregations, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, at least, appears to see the movement as the crest of a wave, not the end of an era.'There’s a lot of research showing that, given the chance, Baby Boomers would embrace the church again,' Olson said. 'What we’ve done here is unique. There are very few senior-housing facilities where the church is attached. Instead of a service that’s held Sunday afternoons in the dining room, our residents are able to walk next door with no ice to deal with and no coats, to participate in a 'real' church service. That’s very meaningful to them.'
Luther Park: where aging is all about living.
Rep. Paul Thissen and Rep. Laura Brod Thinking Differently About Long-Term Care Financing
Kudos to two Minnesota state legislators, Rep. Laura Brod (R-New Prague) and Gubernatorial candidate Rep. Paul Thissen (D-Minneapolis) who have announced that they are introducing legislation that would create tax free savings accounts in Minnesota for long-term care. Thissen and Brod are thinking differently about long-term care:
'It’s not just about long-term care in nursing homes,' said Brod. 'We’ve got to broaden the definition of long-term care; we’re talking about long-term care in the community, personal care, whatever somebody needs on a long-term basis.'
Thissen said it an attempt to move beyond the standard model of 'forcing people to spend themselves into poverty' before becoming entirely dependent on Medicaid.'We do need to have a safety net but what’s equally important is we need people to start thinking and planning ahead and saving for their own retirement,' Representative Thissen said, 'Thinking long-term about that because that really ultimately is the solution.'
You can read the Saint Paul Pioneer Press story here and the KARE-TV story here.This bill grew out of an event Ecumen held last summer when we brought the Nebraska State Treasurer to Minnesota to share news of their long-term care savings plan.
Conductorcise: A Sound Workout for Mind, Body and Soul
Thank you to Changing Aging reader Tom Mann, who blogs at Mature Market Experts for sharing Conductorcise a new exercise program, which combines classical music, learning and aerobic exercise for all ages. Check out the video below. Conductorcise has been chosen as one of North America’s six most innovative active aging programs by the International Council on Active Aging.div>
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Take Our Poll: Have People Always Wanted to Live As Independently As Possible in Old Age?
When we surveyed baby boomers a couple of years ago, they told us overwhelmingly that they want to live as independently for as long as possible. Many other studies echo that.But is that desire unique to the boomers? I don’t think so.Haven’t people always wanted to live as independently as possible for as long as they can? It seems now, however, we are starting to listen.What do you think? Take our poll:[poll id='9']
Editorial: Long-Term Care Financing Shows Need For Change
The Minneapolis Star Tribune yesterday had a good editorial on the need for long-term care financing change. An excerpt is below. Long-term care financing is only elevating as an issue, and although our country’s and state’s financial crisis is horrible, it also is opening eyes that things need to change in this arena:
This year could be the worst yet for long-term care at the Capitol. The state’s looming $5 billion-plus biennial budget shortfall makes the nursing-home industry’s request for an additional $87 million over the next two years seem almost hopelessly unattainable, no matter how justified it is.This is a pattern that badly needs to change. If it doesn’t, many more nursing homes will close, and the quality of care in those that remain will unacceptably erode.Fortunately, the nursing-home industry, advocates for seniors and key legislators of both parties all acknowledge the need for change. While they come at the problem in different ways, they share the view that state government is carrying too much of Minnesota’s long-term care burden, and the state relies too much on costly institutional care.A number of intriguing ideas have been floated that would change this picture over time. The state could create a tax-advantaged savings program to encourage more personal saving for long-term care needs. It could establish a low-cost social insurance system, modeled after Social Security, to cover a portion of the long-term care expenses of enrollees. The state fund that supports MinnesotaCare insurance could be tapped to jump-start such a program.Funding long-term care through community-based consortiums, something already being tried, could be expanded, with an eye toward intensifying efforts to delay or prevent nursing-home stays.Read the full editorial here.
Ecumen Leader Kathryn Roberts Selected As University of Minnesota Regent Finalist
Congratulations to Ecumen CEO and President Kathryn Roberts, who was selected today as a finalist for the Board of Regents at the University of Minnesota. You can read more here. The Board of Regents is the governing body of the University of Minnesota.Kathryn earned her B.A. in Psychology from the University of Minnesota and her Ph.D. in Educational Administration from the University of Minnesota. The University’s College of Education named Kathryn one of its “100 Distinguished Alumni” for the College’s first 100 years. She also was named in 2008 as one of Minneapolis/St. Paul’s 'Best Brains' by Minneapolis/St. Paul Magazine.
The Consumer Electronics Show and Aging Services
Technology is only going to increase in our profession. According to Forrestor Research, U.S. adults 64 and older who bought technology in a recent three-month period spent an average of $365 on consumer electronic products and $429 on computer hardware and peripherals. And Forrestor points out that Americans 55 to 64 are more active in online finance, shopping and entertainment than those under 65.On Saturday, the Consumer Electronics Show hosts the first Silvers Summit, a showcase for products and services dedicated to keeping we aging people engaged, entertained and healthy. Ecumen will be represented at CES by Kathy Bakkenist, who leads our technology initiatives and policy initiatives for the Center for Aging Services Technologies.Among technologies that will be showcased are:The SeniorPC: A collaboration of HP and Microsoft, these are standard HP laptops, desktops or touch-controlled computers with some notable extras: software that adds a shell on top of Windows with simple icons for browsing the Web, listening to music and sending email. Microsoft also is building in a screen magnifier.ClarityLife C900: It’s a new type of cell phone with a large, easy-to-read display and large buttons to simplify dialing. The sound is amplified, and it has a one-touch emergency response button. When pushed it cycles through 5 contacts until someone is reached.Ingestible Microchip: Proetus Biomedical can add an ingestible microchip to a capsule, without altering the medicine. When swallowed, the chip can send a signal through your body that looks like an EKG. According to Edward Baig at USA Today, it can be detected by a special small bandage that can detect data to a cellphone. Qualcomm is helping connect the special bandage to 3G phone networks, so caregivers or relatives will know when what pills patients have taken or if the pills weren’t taken. Proteus sees this coming to market by 2011 or 2012.What a time to be aging …