Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Service Worthy of a Story - Triple J Success!

Recently our personal care home administrator, Tawana Winder Nock shared this story: 

"I have a story I wanted to share with our Homestead family.  One of our Supportive Services residents goes to the Plow & Pineapple every day for breakfast.  A couple of weeks ago she was unable to articulate what she wanted.  She could only describe it.  Our wonderful Dining Services team member, Janelle Rineer, figured out what our resident wanted by the resident’s description.  After consulting with Jimmy Martens, Dining Services Assistant Manager, Jimmy talked to our Supportive Services leadership about the fact that it is hard for some of our residents with cognitive decline to order their food because they can’t read anymore or understand what they are reading.  

JoAnn Gillis, Supportive Services Assessment Coordinator, suggested that Jimmy make a picture menu for residents with this need. Jimmy came up with the menu right away. This is a perfect example of team work between departments.  There was a problem and immediately our staff went to work to solve it!  Kuddos to JoAnn Gillis, Jimmy Martens and Janelle Rineer."

Note, this is the second in an ongoing series of meaningful stories, and we have already come up with a new name to describe them.  Meaningful Stories will now be known as Service Worthy of a Story.


Monday, February 20, 2017

Meaningful Stories - Denise Goss

Exceptional Team Member, Denise Goss 
A few weeks ago, I was stopped in the hallway by an apartment resident who wanted to tell me a story.  A couple days earlier she was ill and transported by ambulance to the emergency room.  She has no family in the area; so she knew she would be alone for however long her hospital stay lasted. About 10:30 PM that night, a nurse came into her ER Room and told her that she had a visitor.  Since she had no family, our resident did not know who could possibly be visiting that late at night, in the ER, in the city.  A few minutes later in walked Denise Goss, one of our many fine evening receptionists at Homestead Village.  Denise decided at 10 PM at the end of her shift that she needed to check on our resident and keep her company.  Our resident told Denise that she did not need to stay and that she should go home; but Denise gently made it clear that she planned to stay with her until she was discharged or admitted to the hospital.

That, my friends, is caring. That is the essence of a compassionate community. That is love.  We are privileged to work with Denise.

HVP Wellness Blog

Wellness.  Doesn't that sound really good?  Yet so often we make choices for no good reason to do the opposite of wellness.  The purpose of the HV Wellness Facebook page and this blog is to make wellness fun and desirable.  I hope you will make this page a regular part of your browsing habits.

So if you look back through the previous posts on this blog, they were focused on what was happening at Homestead Village.  About six months ago, my Homestead Blog moved to the Homestead Village website to generate more web traffic on our website.  This blog has been sitting mostly dormant since that time.  Now it will transform into a Wellness Blog for Homestead Village staff members and anyone else who wants to like our wellness page. Tune in every few days for new wellness ideas and tips.

This blog will also be the home of "Meaningful Stories."  "Meaningful Stories" is what we are calling exceptional team behavior.  In my opinion, Meaningful Stories are as much about emotional wellness as running a 5k is about physical wellness.

While you can find this blog here at Blogger.com, it will always be linked to the HV Wellness Facebook page.  All staff should join the HV Wellness page to stay abreast of wellness opportunities as well as other great staff happenings!