2012 Award Winners Announced

Each year we bring our team leaders to Hutchinson for an educational conference.  During our winter conference, we announce those who won awards during the previous year.

Last night, we announced the winners of the 2012 awards.

 

*Pictured above, L to R: Dean Bloemke, President and Roman Bloemke, Director of Operations

Our first award announced was for the Resident Choice Award.  This award goes to the community who achieved the highest score during our annual resident satisfaction surveys.  The 2012 Resident Choice award was given to Excelsior Place Assisted Living in Baxter, Minnesota.

As their Director of Resident Services, Loree Besser, accepted the award, she gave all of the credit to her team.  ”This year, like many, presents each of us with challenges.  All of the credit for this award goes to my team back at Excelsior Place.  Without a solid foundation, you have nothing.  The team that I work with is absolutely phenomenal and we couldn’t have done this without them.”

Our next award presented last night was the Great Places to Work award.  This award is presented to the communities who achieve a high satisfaction level.  This year’s award winner was River Pointe of Moorhead.

While accepting the award, Ron Bervig, Director of Resident Services gave credit to the team in place at River Pointe, commending them on doing a great job.  ”I really have to thank the staff for the wonderful job they do every day.  They are what makes us successful!”

Our next award goes to communities who have reached a list of achievements and have a high level of excellence in senior living. Criteria for the award include employment best practices and employee satisfaction, resident and family satisfaction, resident and staff safety, financial performance, matching resident needs to care plans throughout a resident’s stay, and overall occupancy.  Each of the performance objectives is to assure the proper and desired level of service is provided.

The 2012 Best Community Awards go to:

Orchard Hill Assisted Living – New Ulm, Minnesota.

Potter Ridge Assisted Living – Red Wing, Minnesota.

Excelsior Place Assisted Living – Baxter, Minnesota

River Pointe of Moorhead – Moorhead, Minnesota

Our final award of the night was the North Star Leadership Award.  This award goes to the person who was nominated by their peers and residents who live in the community.

The 2012 North Star Leadership Award goes to Paulla Perry from Thomas Landing Senior Living, in Rice Lake, Wisconsin.

Paulla was unaware that she had been nominated, so the surprise on her face was great to see when it was announced that she had won.  Paulla thanked each of her peers and the resident’s back at Thomas Landing for making her job a joy to be a part of.  ”I’m at a loss as to what to say.  I need to say thank you to everyone at Thomas Landing for being such a great team to work with.  It’s because of them that it is a joy to go to work everyday.”

Congratulations to all of our award winners!

You continue to inspire us and others to do great work. Thank you for everything you do!

Recap of the WHMC Summer Workshop 2012 – It’s all about Teamwork

For the past two days, we’ve been hosting our Summer Workshop series here at Welcome Home.  Team members from each of our communities have been hear learning and sharing about a variety of topics.

As managers, from top to bottom, can feel like your on your own, trying to figure things out.  Twice per year, we bring in our management teams to have an opportunity to network with other communities and share best practices.  The key part in all of this is that we function as a team, and no one is ever alone.

We really have a wonderful team put together here at Welcome Home.  We have very talented people who really care about the residents and staff who work and live in our communities.  These sessions serve as an opportunity for them to make their communities a great place to call home.

We had many breakout discussions for each department…

 

We had a few general sessions for everyone…

 

 

 

 

And the outside speakers this year were fantastic!

 

 

At each of our summer workshops, we believe in hosting a team building event to draw each team closer.  This year it was an amazing race type of event.  Our group shot below was shot along the Crow River in Hutchinson.

 

 

 

As with each conference, it keeps getting better and better.

A giant thank you to all of our speakers!  We heard many great comments about how wonderful each of you were.

And finally thank you to all of the staff at Welcome Home for helping us put on another fantastic conference and workshop for our team members.

Roman Bloemke, Director of Operations/WHMC

2011 Welcome Home Award Winners

Each year, Welcome Home gives out several awards for excellence in our senior living communities.  Awards for Resident Choice, Employee Choice, Best Community Award, and the North Star Leadership Award were given to communities and individuals who qualified for the awards.

Our teams did such great work in their communities and they need to be honored for doing great things.  All communities really did some amazing things this year, but a few stood out.

The Employee Choice Award is given to the community who scores the highest in employee satisfaction.  Our employee satisfaction surveys are done once per year with our team members.  This year’s award winner, with a score of 90% was River Pointe of Moorhead.

The Resident Choice is the award for the highest resident satisfaction scores among all of the communities.  This year’s totals were really close which shows what a great job all of the communities are doing.

This year’s award went to Potter Ridge with a score of 92%!  This is the 4th time that Potter Ridge has won this award.

The next awards presented were the Best Community Award.  This award goes to the communities that showed excellence in 10 separate categories ranging from overall occupancy, adherence to budgets, resident satisfaction and employee satisfaction survey’s.  Communities must attain a high level in all categories to receive the award.

This year’s recipients included the teams at Potter Ridge Assisted Living (3 time recipient),

Twin Town Villa (3 time recipient),

Orchard Hill (2 time recipient) and,

Excelsior Place (1st time recipient).

Our final award is the North Star Leadership Award.  This award exemplifies those individuals who work in Welcome Home communities for the work that they do with the residents and with their team members.  This award recognizes those team members in our communities who show great leadership qualities.  This award is open to any team member at a property managed by Welcome Home.  Anyone can nominate, from family, to team members, to residents.

This year, we again had fantastic nominees.

Our nominees were (l to r), Blaire Swinarski and Mickie Shutz of Potter Ridge Assisted Living; Judi Durkin and Sharon Humble from Twin Town Villa, and Sherri Schnacki of Thomas Landing.  Dean Bloemke, President of Welcome Home announced the nominations through our YouTube channel.

The 2011 North Star Leadership Award went to Judi Durkin, the Lead Care Manager at Twin Town Villa.

Congratulations to all the recipients of this year’s awards!

Adding to our social network

For the past three years, we have been looking at the best outlets for our message and ways for families to see what Mom and Dad or Grandpa and Grandma are doing on a daily basis.

We first dipped our toes in the social media landscape by developing our Facebook page.  You can also find our community’s Facebook pages from our website.

Shortly thereafter, we started this blog.

• In the past year, we’ve moved towards building our space on YouTube.
• For those of you who are on Google+, we are have just opened our page there as well.
• We are also over on Twitter.  You can find us at @welcomehomemgmt
• If you are of the LinkedIn crowd, you can find us here.

In the next year, look for all of our social media channels to increase activity.  Our goal is to give you relevant information that affect our residents and their families.  We also want to show you pictures and stories about our communities and what is help shape them in to such great places.  We also want to share with you video of events and of our residents and what they are involved in.

We think of these places as our daily newsletters to you, our friends and family.

Come along on our journey as we move forward this year.  It’s already looking to be a great one!

Roman Bloemke, Director of Operations

Thanks and Gratitude

The years seem to fly by so quickly sometimes.  It seems like we just wrote our annual Thanksgiving post here on the blog.

Roman Bloemke, Welcome Home Management

This post for me comes really easy every year, because we have so much to be thankful for.  When you work with caring and compassionate people, it just makes coming to work that much more enjoyable.  As many of our residents will tell you, they are all just wonderful – and I agree!

I’m thankful for the care providers who take the best care of our residents.  I’m thankful for the dining services people who prepare the wonderful food we get to eat.  I’m thankful for the Community Life Coordinators who make the community fun and exciting.  I’m thankful for the Maintenance staff who work to keep things looking nice and operating well.  I’m thankful for the marketing people who are there to help families work through what can be a difficult transition.  I’m thankful for the Nurses who are the most compassionate people I know.  I am thankful for the Memory Care Coordinators who hold a special place in so many people’s hearts.  I’m thankful for the Director’s of Resident Services who do such an amazing job.  And I’m thankful for our office team who work behind the scenes to support the communities.

All of you are just like a family to us.

Finally, I’m thankful for my wife and my two boys who have always been supportive in both my career and my personal life.

As you’ll read below, our team members contributed to our annual post.  Thank you for considering Welcome Home and our properties for your loved ones.  From all of our family to yours, we wish you a happy Thanksgiving.

Home for the Holidays

By Todd Corrow, Marketing Associate at Legends at Heritage Place and Lisa Lehmann, Director of Resident Services at Twin Town Villa.

As families gather together during this upcoming Holiday Season, some may face seeing changes in their parents.  Our goal is to assist all families with these difficult decisions.  We have started a support group for all families in which the topics cover how to make the best decisions for everyone involved.  When a family comes to us looking to take that next step, we sit down with all of them and take the time for them to communicate exactly what they are looking for and what concerns they have.  We assist the families with finding the solution that works best for them.

Another area that we emphasize is that even if Mom and Dad come to live with us, it doesn’t have to mean that Mom and Dad can’t host the family get together.  This Thanksgiving we are working with several of our residents to bring their family to the community for their traditional family gathering.  We know this will mean the world to not only the residents, but to all of us here.  We will have an opportunity to visit with the family and all our residents will have the opportunity to share in the joy of family.

We as a staff strive to allow the families to become just that – a family again, with the caregiver role becoming ours.  This way the spouse can again become the husband or wife without the stress of taking care of the other, we want them to regain the smiles and relaxing times that we all cherish.  We want the sons and daughters to be able to bring the grandchildren in and have the smiles brighten up the entire building.  Smiles and laughter truly possess a healing power and create a warm and positive environment.

Coming home for the holiday’s can sometimes be an eye opener when you come home to an elderly parent(s).  Sometimes it is amazing what declines we see this month that we didn’t notice six months ago when we were home last.

Things you might notice or signs that you should keep an eye out for –

•  Your parent seems depressed. Depression is common in seniors who are isolated and alone.
• Dad is reaching for the backs of the furniture while getting around the house, leads us to believe that he is losses his balance more often, making it more difficult to get around.
• You notice frequent bruises, although your parent may try to cover them up. This may be a sign of falling or mobility and balance problems.
• Your parent wears the same clothes over and over again or neglects personal hygiene. This can indicate that doing laundry and bathing is physically challenging.
• Did you notice that mom isn’t wearing any of her favorite blouses?  She is having a hard time buttoning them up.
• Mom seems more confused lately, she maybe having trouble keeping her medications straight.  Mixing up the times and doses can lead to more confusion.
• The house and yard isn’t as clean and tidy as it used to be.
• Your parent forgets things, including doctor’s appointments and when to take medication. This may be due to memory loss.
• You notice strange or inappropriate behavior. For example, your parent may dress inappropriately for the weather. This can be a sign that your parent is experiencing confusion.

So as we gather for the Holidays lets be thankful for the opportunity to come together and create lasting memories.  If you see things that concern you do not fear what the future holds embrace the opportunity to work with a Community which will provide a safe and caring environment where there will be opportunity to create more memories.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!

Heart and Soul – LCM Workshop

Today, the heart and soul of the care providers visited Welcome Home for their Fall Workshop.

We covered a variety of topics, but the overall goal was sharing information between all of the communities.  What works, best practices, scheduling ideas, taking inventory, and being a leader in the community.

The overall result was a

Great day of discussion – Community Life Coordinator’s Fall Workshop

What an amazing day filled with ideas and great discussion among a bunch of talented people!

Today, we hosted our Community Life Coordinator’s and the Director’s of Resident Services from our communities.  Quite honestly,

Residents celebrate Assisted Living Week with a Bus Trip to the North Shore – Duluth and Two Harbors

This past week, residents of Potter Ridge Assisted Living (Red Wing) along with residents from Orchard Hill Assisted Living (New Ulm) took a road trip to the North Shore of Minnesota.

On Tuesday thirty residents, family and staff, boarded the Sugar Loaf Charters bus and headed to the beautiful North Shore.

We arrived in downtown Duluth to enjoy noon lunch at J. J. Astor Restaurant at the top floor of the Radisson Hotel. The restaurant revolves to give a view of Lake Superior, the harbor, and the city. After lunch we traveled only a few blocks to tour the St. Louis County Heritage & Arts Center or the Depot. The Depot included the Lake Superior Railroad Museum and the Duluth Arts Institute. Most impressive were the displays of massive-sized trains that run no longer on the tracks, but have come to this museum so that people may board and tour the train cars and see the engines.

At 3:30 we boarded the Vista ship for a two-hour sightseeing harbor cruise – the weather was perfect and everyone rather enjoyed the historic and informative lessons given by the ship’s first mates. Once we docked, we split into two groups for dinner – one group went to Famous Dave’s and the other to Grandma’s restaurant.

At 7:30 pm we were headed to Two Harbors to check into the Country Inn Motel. Everyone was ready to rest and get ready to rise early in the morning for more touring. On Wednesday at 9AM we traveled ½ hour north to Gooseberry Falls State Park to walk the trail to see the falls. The last tour stop was at the Split Rock Lighthouse. Here we were met by a tour guide who gave us information about the lighthouse and the history of the area.

At 12:30 we were on our way – first stopping for lunch at the Rustic Inn Café on the North Shore.

Our bus pulled in to Potter Ridge around 7:30 PM – everyone commented about the great time they had and that they were ready to go on another excursion, after getting some much needed rest from this trip!

To see more pictures from our event, head over to the Potter Ridge Facebook page.

Learn more about Orchard Hill and Potter Ridge by visiting us on our website.

2011 King and Queen of Orchard Hill

I just wanted to pass along a link to the New Ulm Journal about the coronation of King and Queen as Orchard Hill kicks off Assisted Living Week.

You can view the short article here.

Congratulations to Charlie and Bonnie!