Interview: Surviving an Outbreak and Finding Resiliency.
Executive Director at Avenir Memory Care of Chandler, Kim Woda
Kim, we understand you are the Executive Director at Avenir Memory Care at Chandler and in late March, Covid 19 entered your community. What was your experience from the beginning?
I would like to begin by saying that our deepest condolences goes out to the to the family members of the residents we lost from this pandemic. Everything happened so quickly and at times I felt like I was in a bad dream that I couldn’t wake up from. It was very challenging to comprehend the complexity of what was happening because there was so many unknowns back then. As a team we figured out quite quickly that this was going to be around for a little while and we needed come together and fight for our residents and staff’s safety We worked diligently together to adapt to all the guidelines and recommendations set forth by the CDC and Department of Health Services. The county provided tremendous support in providing PPE and always answered our questions to the best of their ability. The information that the media was releasing was confusing and contradictory and was not very helpful in keeping our hopes or moral up. But we kept pressing ahead and leaned on each for strength and hope as a team. Our responsible parties and families were looking for answers to questions like “ How did it get in the building?” and “ When can we visit again?” and it broke our hearts to tell them that we could not answer those questions at this time. Our hope and moral was boosted too in the support our Avenir Corporate Team offered. There was no expense spared when it came to defending our residents and staff’s safety. Their uplifting emails, phone calls and virtual visits help remind us that we were not in this fight against COVID 19 alone and that there was an entire team outside the community working with us and that was important for us to know. Even our competitors reached out to us with open arms offering PPE and emotional support and for that we were so grateful. Overall we learned we are resilient!
How did the families respond?
The families were amazing. We have all gained the quote unquote Covid 10 pounds from all of the pizza, donuts, cookies, and other delicious treats that were being sent to us for our families. I literally have hundreds of emails and hand written notes offering gratitude and words of encouragement. Often we would make time with the staff and managers to pause and read these together which really help us to keep going. We have promised that when we can finally have visitors in again we are going to have a HUGE reunion party for our residents and families. And a great party it will be!
How did the residents respond?
I’d have to say in the beginning I was stunned that the residents didn’t exhibit more behaviors with seeing all of the masks, gowns and what I affectionately call “ghost busters” moving around. They seemed to know something was wrong but they were all quite calm about it. After some time we did notice some slight changes in the behaviors of a few of our resident but overall we have kept them engaged and interactive which has help. The compassionate visits, or window visits, have been a big help and we are seeing the sparkle come back to our residents. Being able to see their loved ones gave them so much joy. This virus has forced us all to be apart that is just not how we were designed to be as humans and that’s why I feel these visits were so important for everyone.
How did staff respond?
In the beginning it was very difficult for our front line staff. Like I said, there were so much conflicting information and fear being spread that many of our staff were very frightened. Many chose to self- quarantine, some even found new occupations and that lead to additional challenges on top of dealing with the virus. But the home health companies came to our rescue to fill in the gaps of the open shifts we had until our staff were out of quarantine. I can tell you that we are fully staffed and all our team is back in place and we are now taking in new residents again. I can’t tell you how excited we are to be helping new families again.
Now that you can take on new residents, what does that process look like?
We are grateful to be adding new residents to our community. What we start with is the family or current health care provider are taking and recording the temperature of the new resident 7 days prior to moving into the community. All new residents must be tested for TB and have a clear Covid 19 test before moving into their isolation suite. Once they are in we are following the guidelines on isolating them for 14 days. We can take in a few new residents at a time as we are staggering them to allow our team to monitor and support them so that they acclimate safely. We also hire extra staff or one on one support if needed to keep the resident safe and comfortable.
What do you want other memory care communities to know if they experience Covid-19 in their building?
The best advice I can give is to follow all of the current guidelines and over communicate with your families. We made weekly calls to the POA’s in the beginning. We made daily calls to those who had family members contract the virus. I sent out almost daily email communication that was 100% transparent and answered every single question with truth. We offered Facetime and window visits for our families, however they were not practical for all of our residents. Take the time to find out who they do work for. Know that you will get through it, that it’s a team effort, and that God’s hands are in the process each step of the way. We are all essential.
We are so thankful to Avenir Memory Care of Chandler for sharing their trials and wisdom with us. We are all in this together and need to continue learning from each other!
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