CRAFTING A STRATEGIC PLAN BEFORE DISASTER STRIKES With 200 locations nationwide, Atria


takes a similar approach. The corporate office offers a template which is then fine- tuned at the community level based on the level of risk, the resources available, and a host of other community-specific factors. “Foremost in the mind of the executive di-


rector is the safety of residents and staff, so they need to have a current roster. They need to make sure there is enough medication and oxygen. They need to know that there are name tags ready,” said Abby Figueroa, vice president of operations and former executive director at Atria. “All these tiny little details make up a checklist and the executive direc- tor’s job is to implement all those details.” Those localized checklists become the


driving force behind Atria’s emergency re- sponse, as Figueroa saw when she helped the company’s Houston communities pre- pare for the arrival of Hurricane Harvey. “I went to every community and went through the checklist of flashlights and name tags, making sure we were covered for every single resident,” she said. At Northbridge, having localized plans


makes it possible to meet the diverse re- quirements that can vary not just at the state level but even at the city level.


specific types of emergencies. A tornado, a flood, an active shooter, an elopement: Each requires a degree of finesse in terms of plan- ning. In some cases, evacuation may take a higher priority, while in others the immedi- ate concern for safety takes precedence. This seems to set a high bar. Do executive


directors need to master the fine points of multiple distinct emergency plans in order to be truly prepared? Experts say no. “You want to think about it as an 80-20


rule,” said Umair A. Shah, president of the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) and executive director of Harris County Public Health in Texas. “There are 80 percent of things that are common to all emergencies. Then you look at the 20 percent that would happen if there was a flood or if a tornado took the roof off. You start with the 80 percent and then work on the 20 percent.” Even that 20 percent need not be exhaus-


tive. It comes back to the risk assessment: In fine-tuning the general plan, consider which specific risks rate highest for your particular community, and focus your energies there. With that tailored, localized plan in place,


it’s time to implement the second lesson in the emergency planning playbook.


Nor is turnover the only driving concern.


The nature of staffing within a senior living community also can have a subtle, negative impact on training, with workers on outlying shifts sometimes slipping through the cracks. “You need to keep a list of all of your associ- ates and make sure they have been through the training. If you have people on week- ends and the nightshift, they can’t get lost in the shuffle. You can’t just do training Mon- day through Friday. Emergencies happen on nights and weekends and you need to tailor training for those associates,” Pokora said. At The Heritage, Tagatz has exactly


this in mind as he coordinates the training schedule. “In our health center, the code is to do one fire drill per shift per quarter. We do all three shifts every month and then we do spot checks, walking through and asking: If there’s a fire what would you do? We do that specifically because of the turnover. We want people to learn and we want them to retain it, and the more you do it the more likely that is to happen,” he said. Atria tailors its training to meet diverse state


requirements, for example by drilling for fire events monthly or quarterly as required. But the company also has its own internal proto- cols for disaster training. Department heads


“Foremost in the mind of the executive director is the safety of residents and staff, so they need to have a current roster. They need to make sure there is enough medication and oxygen. They need to know that there are name tags ready,” said Abby Figueroa, vice president of operations and former executive director at Atria. “All these tiny little details make up a checklist and the executive director’s job is to implement all those details.”


“Fire chiefs want things done in a certain


way. It’s their people who are going into the building and they will want us to meet their requirements,” Bertram said. “We have five communities in Maine and each fire department has its own way of doing things. Some will allow us to evacuate to a courtyard, while for others we have to fully evacuate away from the building. In Massa- chusetts, some communities will allow us to protect people in place, where others want us to bring people together in a common room or a common area.” The need for granularity applies not just to individual communities, but also to


Train, train, train Cities and states may impose specific train- ing requirements around emergency plan- ning. For most communities, these rules will constitute only the bare minimum and most senior living operators will go well beyond the baseline in their efforts to drill for disaster. “This is an industry with high turnover,”


said Mike Pokora, managing director at Willis Towers Watson. “At a community level, that means that you may have done training six months ago, but now when you get into hurricane season, that person who had the training is no longer with that organization.”


10 SENIOR LIVING EXECUTIVE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018


are trained on hire and retrained annually. Individual properties also customize training schedules based on the perceived local risk. “It depends on what is going on in the en-


vironment,” Gentry said. “When there are fires in California within a certain range of our communities, we know it is time to get the communities ready and let them know what may be expected of them.” At Northbridge, Bertram aims to train one


shift per month; the first shift might drill in Jan- uary and the second shift in February, so that everyone gets some training quarterly. This on- going training is an extension of a commitment to emergency planning that begins at hiring.


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