Elevate Eldercare

Under Jeannee Parker Martin's leadership, LeadingAge California has achieved some remarkable workforce development numbers, graduating more than 1,000 students from a CNA and home health aide training program – funded by a generous $25 million state grant – in its first year alone. While not every state has California's budget surplus, dollars are only part of the equation. The California example...

In his years marketing major brands like Gillette, Pepsi, and Dannon, Jeff Weiss never encountered any push to pitch products to consumers over the age of 55. Then, once he turned 55 himself, he realized that he didn't feel like a different person just because he crossed an age milestone – he was still himself, with all the same evolving sets of desires, goals, and needs as people younger than 55....

When Jack York first started bringing computers into senior living communities in the 1990s, he never could have imagined the ways elders use technology to stay connected with loved ones and their interests today – particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. But even back then, when PCs took up entire desks and internet connections required a landline, the goal was the same as it is now: keeping el...

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the concept of aging in place – already the overwhelming preference for most people – received more media and political attention than ever before. But Ryan Frederick believes that the phrase, while well-meaning, is too passive and restrictive, implying that aging is something that happens to people with no agency of their own. Frederick, the founder and CEO o...

The traditional nursing home took its design and operational cues from hospitals – a setting defined by its focus on physical health over all other considerations. Since the late 1970s, Planetree International has worked to infuse humanity back into hospitals and, increasingly, health care settings of all kinds. In the beginning, that meant fighting a culture where visitors had strict time limits...

Last year, the groundbreaking NASEM report on nursing home quality laid out a host of recommendations for improving the broken long-term care system in the U.S. While none of those suggestions is necessarily more important than the others, the topic of improving the LTC workforce is probably the one garnering the most attention from providers and policymakers. This week on the podcast, Dr. Kezia S...

Eldercare – and U.S. health care writ large – too often is a cold, impersonal experience for the people both giving and receiving care, as ever-increasing demands for efficiency and profit turn an intimate experience into boxes to check and line items on balance sheets. Dr. Stephen Trzeciak, chief of medicine at Cooper University Health Care and co-author of the book "Compassionomics," seeks to ch...

When the Australia-based ACH Group agreed to become the first provider outside of the United States to fully implement the Green House model, CEO Frank Weits was taking the next step in his organization's 70-year tradition of person-directed care – and building on his own experiences in eldercare, which began as a teenager growing up in the Netherlands. Weits joins Susan Ryan to discuss his vision...

More than 30 years ago, current Center for Innovation board chair Michele Holleran launched her eponymous data analytics firm with a focus that was considered revolutionary at the time: measuring the resident and staff satisfaction at senior living communities. Holleran's mission is now far more mainstream, and she joins "Elevate Eldercare" to discuss some of the more promising trends that she and...

For the first time ever, The Green House Project and Pioneer Network are hosting a single conference under the Center for Innovation banner, and we want the entire eldercare community to be there! In this week's episode, hear CFI's Penny Cook, Marla DeVries, and Joan Devine talk about the engaging speakers coming to Pittsburgh from July 23-26, including "Compassionomics" co-author Dr. Stephen Trze...

The Montessori approach to education empowers children to learn by doing activities that emphasize their innate abilities, not by rote or one-size-fits-all lessons. Inspired by his family's own experiences with the Montessori method, Cameron Camp decided to apply those principles to dementia care, a field where far too often people are boiled down to sets of symptoms and behaviors to manage within...

During the pandemic, the father-daughter team of Duncan and Erin McKellar teamed up – over Zoom, of course – to create a passion project based on their unique life experiences and skills. As both a psychiatrist specializing in the treatment of older people and the son of a woman, Lizzy, who was diagnosed with early onset dementia at age 60, Duncan has extensive firsthand experience navigating the...

This week, please enjoy the first episode of our new podcast series, "Mission Possible," produced in conjunction with the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care and AMDA – The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine. Each week, you'll hear in-depth interviews and conversations about the ways that leaders can turn decades of reports and recommendations into real results for t...

When Rose Marie Fagan first applied for a job as a nursing home ombudsman, she had no prior experience with long-term care or health care in general – but her status as an outsider almost immediately proved to be a much bigger asset than a liability. With her fresh eyes, Fagan was able to clearly see the injustices of the era, including physical restraints, unsanitary conditions, and dehumanizing...

Lori Smetanka of the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care returns to "Elevate Eldercare" for an update on the key nursing home reform policies that she and other consumer advocates are watching most closely – including minimum staffing levels, ownership and investor transparency, and finally incorporating real person-centered care principles into day-to-day operations at all communit...

Barry Barkan played a crucial role in the formation of Pioneer Network in 1997, but his experience in eldercare goes back 20 years before that, to a fateful morning of reflection in Live Oak Park in Berkeley, Calif.   Barry joins "Elevate Eldercare" and longtime colleague Penny Cook to discuss his five decades of advocacy for elders, starting with the then-radical – and far too often, still radica...

Even as a self-described "mediocre gardener," Orla Concannon has brought the joys of nature to thousands of elders across the country – all by bringing the garden to them. Eldergrow, Concannon's company, started out as a graduate school project but has since grown into a successful firm with national reach, empowering elders in a variety of settings to tend to indoor gardens while also enjoying th...

As the president of the Point Roberts Circle of Care board, Galen Wood has a unique task in a unique place – providing services and supports for elders in one of the most secluded spots in the United States. The town of Point Roberts, Wash. is what geographers call a pene-exclave. Located at the end of a peninsula, Point Roberts is surrounded by water on three sides and Canada to the north, meanin...

High school junior Eli Grundy has been immersed in eldercare for as long as he can remember, thanks to his parents: One of his moms is the administrator of the Spearly Center, a unique skilled nursing community in Denver, and the other works for the Alzheimer's Association. At age 12, Eli followed in his moms' footsteps and started as an activities volunteer at the Spearly Center – so when he turn...

"Elevate Eldercare" often welcomes academic researchers from across the aging field, but Anne Basting is the first English professor to sit down behind our mics. Basting is a firm believer in the power of art and creativity as a medium of communication and connection for people living with dementia. From putting on a production of the ancient story of Ulysses at a long-term care community to condu...

The new year year kicked off with another report analyzing the failures of the nursing home system during COVID-19, this time from the HHS Office of the Inspector General. But while understanding the mistakes of the past is important, the time for retrospective reports has long since passed – and policymakers have the tools to effect real change today. Join CFI communications director Alex Spanko...

Every Green House community is different, from the people who call it home to the surrounding neighborhood and landscape. At Londonderry Village in Palmyra, Pa., outside of Hershey, the Green House homes come with the wafting smell of chocolate, an intergenerational play park, and people-powered vehicles known as trishaws. We sit down with Londonderry Village president Jeff Shireman to discuss how...

The Moving Forward Coalition launched with a clear but ambitious goal: Operationalize the host of recommendations from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's (NASEM) 2022 report on the state of nursing home care. This week, we welcome Moving Forward leaders Alice Bonner and Isaac Longobardi to talk about the group's mission and work, and how everyone in long-term care – fr...

The past year brought significant momentum for real eldercare reform, and the year ahead promises even more progress toward our goal of overhauling the long-term care system in the U.S. and abroad. We've gathered a group of CFI leaders – CEO Susan Ryan, chief culture officer Penny Cook, strategic advisor Ann Montgomery, and communications director Alex Spanko – to discuss the trends that will shap...

Dr. Michael Wasserman's unique combination of professional experience makes him one of the most incisive voices in the long-term care reform space: As both a trained geriatrician and the former leader of California's largest nursing home chain, Wasserman can speak to both the medical and financial problems baked into the eldercare system. He joins Penny Cook to share his vision for a person-center...