for almost every family member at every community.” He said one of the positives to come out
of the pandemic was improved messaging to family members and staff, including both automated and direct communications, about the status of the community. Those resources now are integrated into regular operational practices. “Creating partner messaging that in-
cludes everyone is key to emergency prepa- ration and planning,” Breneman said. As is often the case, communication
is key in a crisis – often tech-enabled communication. “We believe communication with our res-
idents and their families and with associates is of the utmost importance and take great care to provide frequent status updates dur- ing an emergency affecting the community,” Baier said. Breneman said Juniper is “high tech and
high touch” and emphasizes the caring component to messaging, whether elec- tronic or in person. “Messaging needs must be on-point and
understandable but also might require a di- rect phone call (instead of text or email),” he said. “In one of our most recent crisis scenarios, the network of team members communicating about the urgency and sta- tus of events as well as the information be- ing shared from family members and other partners was essential.”
training and team members 4
In an all-hazards plan, Szpytek said training for all team members is critical. “They've got to train everyone to understand that they might be in the position to make those decisions,” he said. “There's a lot of train- ing drills and exercises to go into maintain- ing an all-hazards approach.” As Breneman said, people make the dif-
ference in emergencies. “Actual training ex- perience for your team members is essential to help ingrain how they respond to and implement all those critical procedures and
other tasks in and around creating safety for your community, residents, family and other team members,” he said. Training cannot leave anyone out any-
more, Szpytek said, since the pandemic revealed that emergency management of any kind of emergency requires a team approach. “It’s not just the nurses or clinicians – it’s
environmental services, it’s facilities main- tenance, it’s the leadership team. It's not just one sector or one person's responsibil- ity within a senior living community – it's everyone's responsibility. So everyone needs to be trained.” All team members in senior living com-
munities are first responders, “whether they know it or not,” Szpytek said. “Whether a resident falls, the fire alarm sounds, there’s a report of an active shooter in the area, they’ve got to act like first responders and they’ve got to think like first responders,” he said. Breneman said digital training tools
are “wonderful” and provide consistency through standardized training components. However, there is a need for simulations of events so that people can understand their roles and how to function during “very diffi- cult and sometimes scary situations.” Due to state requirements or regulatory needs, he said emergency plans are not always written “in a manner that creates user experience.” “That’s why during emergency planning
it’s so important to have very explicit and simple checklists to support all the team members in critical roles,” Breneman said. “These must be integrated in and around the community as much as possible to create the high level of familiarity and routiniza- tion as ‘calls to action’ in the crisis scenario.” Training is one key component of an
overall approach to emergency manage- ment that focuses on solutions and pre- paredness and fights the temptation to hope for the best. “It always has to be about awareness,
monitoring and surveilling situations,” Sz- pytek said. “One of the biggest threats to effective emergency management in any kind of organization – and we saw this with COVID optimistic bias – is thinking, ‘How bad can it really be?’ We’ve got to react to the realities.”
DONALD BRENEMANī
Vice President of Risk Management and Business Operations Juniper Communities
“Actual training experience for your team members is essential to help ingrain how they respond to and implement all those critical procedures and other tasks in and around creating safety for your community, residents, family, and other team members.”
JULY/AUGUST 2023
ARGENTUM.ORG 13
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