MEMORY CARE
“If you’re the leader of whatever you’re the leader of, you might be a leader of a department, you might be the leader of a community, but peo ple need to see you as making the decision.”
This “buck stops here” protocol is all part
of the leadership equation. “I think that’s important. If you’re the
leader of whatever you’re the leader of, you might be a leader of a department, you might be the leader of a community, but peo- ple need to see you as making the decision,” Shook said. “And when you’re a leader of the com-
pany that needs to be the case as well. If they’re in alignment with what you’re do- ing and you’re following that practice and you’re listening to them and getting their input, people will follow along in the ulti- mate decision, even though it may not be 100% of what they agreed with.”
Hearing a Mentor’s Voice To get to where he is now, Shook cites the support of family, friends, and many men- tors along the way. The voices from these people often help shape decisions even now, he said, and gave as example the lessons he
learned from one role model, Jim Conte, the CEO of Community Psychiatric Centers. “I worked there for 20 years, became
president, and we grew it from six hospitals to 50 throughout the U.S., Puerto Rico, and England, and the second-largest dialysis company in the country,” Shook said. “And when you come to foundational problems as to how do you decide today what to do, what not to do, I go back to his teaching.” A case point came during the pandemic.
As with many other health care providers along the care continuum, but specifi cally in long-term care where so many lives were at stake due to the nature of the COVID-19 virus, Silverado had to decide on whether to mandate vaccinations for employees. “It was a serious problem. And the best
we could do was to get maybe 60% to 80% of the staff voluntarily vaccinated,” he said. “You know some people are dying as we
tried to get everyone vaccinated, our residents. And so how do we protect them? What do you
40 SENIOR LIVING EXECUTIVE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2023
do? It’s very hard to hire staff ,” he said. Silverado like every senior living provider
was having trouble fi nding staff in the fi rst place. “You did everything you could, but you’re not getting there to create that safe bubble for people with vaccinations. So, I went to the foundation that Jim taught me many years ago now, and it’s to do what’s best for the patient, or in our case the resident.” After thoroughly discussing the problem
with our group Shook told his team to man- date the vaccinations for staff . The hiring and retention problem would be secondary to the health of residents, and staff . “Personnel problems are our problem.
That’s not the resident’s problem. So, the answer was unanimously approved by the executive team, the administrators, and the medical directors to mandate vaccination. And that’s why we were the fi rst in the na- tion to do that March 1, 2021,” he said. Lessons learned, lessons applied, and Silverado’s mission intact.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56
