Elevate Eldercare

As non-profit nursing home operators continue to shutter their doors and cede ground to for-profits, one organization in New England is helping mission-driven organizations honor their unique legacies while providing vital , centralized logistical support. Legacy Lifecare chief philanthropy officer/founding executive Barry Berman and chief operating officer Betsy Mullen join the podcast to talk ab...

Individuals and companies frequently develop new solutions to make life easier for elders and caregivers, but not all of them have what it takes to actually make the jump from theory to widespread practice. In Australia, that's where ARIIA – Aged Care Research & Industry Innovation Australia – comes in. Since 2021, ARIIA has funded a host of projects to test a range of technological innovations, w...

In a n eldercare field that's populated with unseen and unsung heroes , family members of people living with dementia can often feel the most isolated and underrepresented. I n the Greater Manchester area of the United Kingdom, Empowered Conversations creates safe, brave spaces for small cohorts of people on the caregiving journey to take a step away from their day-to-day stresses and struggles. B...

Far too often, people – even well-meaning folks who work in the field – fail to see nursing home residents as humans capable of the same growth, creativity, and fulfillment as people living in private homes. In fact, this ageism and ableism is a major reason why our imagination around reforming communal care settings is so narrowly focused on individual health metrics , and not overall wellbeing....

As eldercare CEOs and women of color, Anita Holt and Frances Salinas are relative rarities in a sector that's supposed to serve people of all races and backgrounds equally. They join the podcast this week to discuss their work at their respective communities – Holt at The Forest at Duke in Durham, N.C. and Salinas at Wesley Willows in Rockford, Ill. – and the various ways that emphasizing diversit...

Revisiting the Teaching Nursing Home was designed to pair Pennsylvania nursing homes with area schools of nursing, introducing up-and-coming nurses to careers in eldercare while also infusing age-friendly care practices into the communities' operations. But according to Nancy Zionts , the primary investigator on the project – as well as the chief operating officer and chief program officer at the...

Robert Kramer – the founder of think tank Nexus Insights, as well as the co-founder and former CEO of the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care (NIC) – returns to "Elevate Eldercare" for another stimulating discussion on the big-picture future of eldercare. As providers and advocates focus on the individual issues facing the sector, such as persistent staffing shortages and new reg...

Every December, we use the last "Elevate Eldercare" episode of the year to take stock of the previous 12 months and make some predictions for the year ahead. CFI logged substantial milestones in 2023 : celebrating 20 years of Green House homes, taking the model international with the opening of new homes in Australia , further integrating the GHP and Pioneer Network communities , and gathering the...

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine shook the eldercare world in April 2022 with a scathing report on the nation's broken nursing home system. Less than two years later, the Moving Forward Nursing Home Quality Coalition – formed in the wake of the NASEM report to operationalize its conclusions – has made substantial progress in addressing various quality improvement goals...

As we navigate a holiday season set against the backdrop of global and domestic conflict, this 2021 interview with Dr. Edith Eger feels even more vital than ever. A psychologist and a Holocaust survivor, Dr. Eger has 96 years of direct experience with navigating troubled times – both for herself and in service of others – and her ability to find light in the darkness remains deeply inspiring. Afte...

It's easy to forget that not all nursing home residents are elders – and Vincent Pierce is dedicated to making sure leaders, advocates, and the general public remember. Pierce, a resident of the Coler nursing community on Roosevelt Island in New York City, wears many hats. He's the founder of Nursing Home Lives Matter, an advocacy group formed during the yearlong COVID lockdown that robbed him and...

"Unpretentious" isn't a word you see often in marketing materials for senior living communities, but it shows up several times in the description of Northaven Senior Living in Seattle. Darlene Storti, Northaven's executive director, joins "Elevate Eldercare" to discuss this down-to-earth assisted and independent living community for lower- and moderate-income elders – as well as the organization's...

Each Thanksgiving, "Elevate Eldercare" centers gratitude by handing the mic over to the people who make Green House homes such great places to live. This year, we're headed out west to Wyoming to meet three team members from Green House Living for Sheridan: licensed practical nurse Kiara Charlson, HR manager and education coordinator Jon Lanning, and Shahbaz Necia Reynolds. Through their stories,...

Stacey Bergmann joined the Center for Innovation this month as the new director of network and community relations – tasked with serving as the main liaison between the national organization and our local-level Green House Project and Pioneer Network partners – and today she joins the podcast to discuss her career, passions, and vision for the future of eldercare. Bergmann, an advanced practice ce...

Brian McGarry ' s research at the University of Rochester has focused on the ways that financial and economic factors affect care in nursing homes — a particularly vital topic as the sector continues to debate a contentious proposed staffing mandate, which could have a significant impact on providers in the years to come. McGarry joins CFI ' s Alex Spanko for a discussion on the ways that incentiv...

For the last three years, many eldercare organizations haven ' t had the ability to truly thrive, with leaders focused squarely on surviving the many challenges facing providers up and down the care continuum. But as we head toward the end of another year, it ' s a good time to take stock and make plans for the year ahead — with an eye toward moving beyond merely surviving and reaching a place whe...

In both the public and policymaker imagination, nursing home reform is strictly a health care issue, the domain of state health departments and the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). But the prevalence of subpar nursing homes — and lack of empowering, person-directed alternatives to an aging long-term care infrastructure — is just as much the result of housing policy as health...

David Simpson is an accomplished musician who ' s been singing since the age of 12, performing alongside music legends like the Staples Singers, Dionne Warwick, and the Drifters. He ' s a visual artist who uses his drawings and paintings to lift others ' spirits and push himself to improve his craft. He ' s a father, a sibling, and heart transplant recipient. And he ' s a resident of the Thome Riv...

The discourse around improving the eldercare landscape tends to focus on narrow, discrete metrics: What's the correct number of nursing home staff hours per day? How can we reduce rehospitalizations? What types of services can be provided in the home most efficiently? Scott Townsley, professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County's Erickson School of Aging Studiers and a longtime elderc...

Biophilic design – incorporating nature into the built environment – has grown in popularity in recent years, but the term itself may still seem daunting and strange, especially in an eldercare space where new development of nursing homes is exceedingly rare. Dr. Tuwanda Green, an adjunct instructor at Virginia Tech with more than 30 years of architectural experience, joins the podcast to discuss...

Faced with the workforce issues plaguing the entire eldercare sector, Goodwin Living in Northern Virginia developed a citizenship assistance program for its immigrant employees – simultaneously boosting recruitment and retention while also providing a new social outlet for residents, who help their caregivers prepare for the citizenship exam. Looking for a way to help his mother respond to a diagn...

In 2021, Dr. Samir Sinha was given a potentially daunting job: serving as the technical committee chair for a group tasked with establishing new, national long-term care standards in Canada in the wake of COVID-19's devastation. Dr. Sinha, an internationally renowned geriatrician who serves as the Director of Geriatrics at Mount Sinai and the University Health Network Hospitals in Toronto, joins t...

Building truly age-friendly communities starts with incorporating elders' needs, wants, and goals into civic planning. As the executive director of Age-Friendly Greater Pittsburgh, Laura Poskin works across the city to build bridges between elders and the decision-makers who can help create accessible, integrated spaces for people of all ages and abilities – all while centering the opinions of old...

This week on the show, we take a break from eldercare policy and best practices with a story of mindfulness and adventure. Previous guest Natalie Yates-Bolton – a senior lecturer in nursing at the University of Salford, Manchester in the United Kingdom – returns with her mother, Myra, for a conversation about their recent pilgrim walk through France. Natalie and Myra recently walked 32 miles along...

The relationship between nurses and certified nursing assistants (CNAs) in nursing homes can often be fraught with hierarchy and disputes over tasks and responsibilities, as well as the normal conflicts that arise in any workplace. To gain some insights into building collaborative care teams, we sat down with two leaders from an organization that's excelled in that department: Presbyterian SeniorC...