At LeadingAge Colorado, we firmly believe that advocating for our members is one of the best ways to ensure that Colorado seniors not only receive the best care possible, but to have access to housing and service options that best align with their needs. We make it a priority to provide LeadingAge Colorado members with all the information, resources, and connections necessary to properly adapt to the evolving landscape of senior services and care. Assisted living advocacy is our bread and butter, it’s our mission to help.

Just like in other public health fields, it’s imperative to keep your assisted living administrator licensing current and updated. It’s a fundamental part of ensuring that the public receives proper care!

Plus, keeping your senior care licensing up-to-date will make sure that that you are well informed of the most current business operations, laws and regulations, ethical practices, and more, which helps residents receive the highest level of care possible.

If you haven’t done so already, please take time to visit our New Career Center - a premier resource to connect career opportunities with aging services talent. The Career Center is designed to provide you with a better overall recruitment experience through a modern design and an intuitive interface.

BOULDER, CO:  Frasier, a not-for-profit Life Plan community in Boulder shared the same difficult journey that so many other life plan communities experienced by having to quickly respond to a virus that was proving to be deadly for older adults throughout the world.  And like other communities offering a continuum of care, including a 54-bed nursing care center, restrictions on visitations and other activities began in early March 2020 - almost a year ago.

Frasier was amid a plethora of “rolling” move-ins into The Prairies, which was their brand-new independent living building comprised of 98 large one and two-bedroom apartments. At the time the pandemic struck, The Prairies was nearly 100% pre-sold, with move-ins beginning in January 2020, and scheduled through the rest of the year.  So, what is uncommon?  

COVID-19: Updates and Resources from May 20

Colorado Case Summary

• CliftonLarsonAllen Expense Tracking Tool to Help Economic Relief Fund Recipients Stay Compliant. The Expense Tracking Tool is available for our Members at $750.  
  
  
• Hall Render shares five actions to take now as HHS is Distributing $4.9B in COVID-19 CARES Funding Relief to Skilled Nursing Facilities.
  
  
• Interstate is providing COVID-19 Decontaminations and they are included on the governments list as essential services. View a letter from Interstate's CEO.
  
  
• KEPHART envisions that the design of senior living communities will be forever changed. Read Design for Senior Living in the Age of Pandemics white paper.
  
  
• Morrison Living's Commitment During COVID-19: Now and always, we are focused on the safety and wellbeing of our residents, associates, and community. Our commitment is to be the best part of someone’s day—especially when those days may be marked by uncertainty. We understand that we are in a rapidly changing situation; our hearts go out to all those that have been and will be impacted by COVID-19.
  
  

• NextStep has released their National COVID-Ready Caregiver Certification that uses clinically-backed, expert-developed online learning to help develop safety skills during the Coronavirus pandemic. LeadingAge Members are elgible for significant savings using the coupon code LEADINGAGE5 at check-out to access the program for just $5.

• Plante Moran has developed an on-demand webinar, Strategies for physician groups navigating the COVID-19 recovery. View this on-demand webinar in partnership with Ziegler to understand short-term and long-term strategies your physicians practice should consider to navigate your COVID-19 recovery.
  
  

• Ziegler hosted a webinar on the Paycheck Protection Program for all senior living clients (Powerpoint slide presentation attached). A playback of the presentation is available at this web link. 

Please see below of a list of curated COVID-19 state and national resources. 

To ensure members get the most current information we are now emailing COVID-19 related information directly to members via the COVID-19 Weekly Update. To be added to the distribution list, please contact Sarah McVeigh.

LeadingAge Colorado's strength is our relationship with our sponsors that believe in LeadingAge Colorado's mission and vision. These companies offer a wide range of products and services – in addition to a wealth of useful information and expertise – for LeadingAge Colorado members.

To make access easier for members to important COVID-19 information and policy changes, LeadingAge Colorado has put together this document listing all operational memos issued by HCPF. The memos are organized by provider with the latest at the top. (April 20)

• Nursing Homes
• Alternative Care Facilities
• Adult Day Services

COVID-19 has brought specific treatment questions into focus.  Even if advance care planning has been completed by your patients/residents in the past, now is a good time to revisit the conversation to address the current pandemic.  This guide and the following resources/tip sheets have been designed to help your patients/residents, their families, and all of us consider specific medical treatments, values and decisions in relation to COVID-19. 

• COVID-19 The Conversation Project Presentation to learn advance care planning basics.  Link to Video
• Link to The Conversation Project's Being Prepared in the Time of COVID-19 Guide.
• Medical Durable Power of Attorney Document MDPOA (unless already completed, accurate and available). Link to Colorado MDPOA Form
• Colorado Care Planning Website - (content in English & Spanish/large text option)
• Link to the COVID-19 Treatment Decision Guide.  If you go to the hospital and become seriously ill, these are the questions you will likely be asked.
• Remember to take care of yourself: Link to Remembering the Heart in Turbulent times
• Link to Caregiver Support/Info Resources

Argentum and the American Seniors Housing Association (ASHA) have announced a new resource, Senior Living FastMatch, to help workers who have been displaced due to the fallout from COVID-19 find a new employment opportunity in senior living. More than a traditional job board, however, the Senior Living FastMatch resource, hosted at the Senior Living Works website, uses artificial intelligence to evaluate the best fit for candidates and identifies the top jobs for them in their geographic region. The recruitment tool is powered by Arena, a leading software company that applies big data and predictive analytics to help companies make more successful hiring decisions. In addition, OnShift, a human capital management software company for the senior living industry and Argentum’s partner for workforce development, created an expanded resource toolkit to help senior living organizations recruit and hire employees during this emergency. Read more.

July 31 • Covenant Village of Colorado • Westminster
9:00 AM - 3:30 PM

Now is the time to make employee retention a priority and get all your leaders on the same page! Join us July 31st for another powerful program with our workforce retention partners from Crescendo Strategies with a combination workshop of big-picture thinking about today's employment landscape along with immediately actionable strategies for reducing employee turnover across your organization. We'll dive deeper into why staff REALLY leave (beyond pay and schedules), learn ways to communicate with team members more effectively, and discuss how to maximize the time we have with each and every new hire to improve retention and reduce issues of continuity of care from so much staffing churn! 

Read more.

The best and brightest industry professionals are out there. Access this targeted and qualified pool of talent by advertising your jobs on the LeadingAge Colorado’s new Career Center.

Visit today and sign in at jobs.leadingagecolorado.org.

Read more.

More than 250 attendees, speakers, and business partners attended the annual conference last week. Here is a link to session presentations.

In addition to outstanding educational sessions and a packed exhibition floor, the renewal of friendships with colleagues and the introduction to first-time attendees were made.

"Connect19 is one of the best conferences that I have been to! The conference did a great job encouraging new networking and making it engaging for young professionals". - Kate West, Eaton Senior Communities

Experience cutting-edge education, network with colleagues, and celebrate with individuals whose work makes their communities the best in senior care and services. This year's Annual Conference and Exhibition promises to be another success.

When: May 13-15, 2019
Where: Hotel Talisa, Vail, CO