Abstract
The Georgetown Retirement Residence provides assisted living for the elderly. The organization is located in one of the most beautiful and delightful neighborhoods in the Washington DC. At the organization, senior citizens enjoy retirement living at the privacy and comfort of their individual suits. There is added security provided at the home and the staff and nurses work all round the clock to provide the clients with what they need. Since the organization is located in Georgetown, a very delightful neighborhood, the surrounding is suitable and inviting for the elderly. Accommodation at the organization begins from $3750 per month. The organization also has a highly rated hospital facility located nearby the residence.
The organization has employees who serve as nurses, professional physicians, professional social workers, administration staff, and support staff. The organization has a number service programs provided to its clients. The services are mainly categorized into two: health and well being services, and lifestyle services. The health and well being services available at the Georgetown Retirement Residence include: all round the clock professional nursing service, monitoring vital signs and administering of medication, 24 hour personal care (including getting meals, getting to activities, medication management, dressing, and bathing), interdisciplinary care planning, dietary services, ambulation and programs for motion exercises, rehab and consultative services, therapies, and support groups for widows and widowers.
With regards to lifestyle, the organization believes that people should enjoy their retirement lives with peace of mind, comfort, and style. The range of lifestyle services provided by the organization therefore includes: chauffeured transportation to appointments and social engagements, onsite amenities (such as activity rooms, library, barber shop, beauty parlor, and chapel), linen services and daily housekeeping, concierge services, active social program, coordinated daily activities, and English garden.
The type of service provided by the organization is assisted living. This form of care mainly became a necessity as a result of the needs of senior citizens who do not have to live independently and at the same time do not need medical care provided to them 24 hours. Basically, a retirement home does not only provide medical care to senior citizens but a wide variety of care. It is a multi residence housing facility intended for the elderly. Within the retirement residence, the senior citizens are provided with assistance and supervision for all their daily activities. This is in addition to medical care and personal care.
History
Georgetown retirement residence has been in operation for quite a long time now. The organization came in to business following the rising need among senior citizens for assisted living. Despite the presence of nursing homes for the elderly, assisted living services became a need especially to the elderly who did not have to live independently and also required no need for medical care provided to them 24 hours in a day. Georgetown retirement residence began as a nursing home taking care of the elderly. Initially, when the organization began, its primary focus was to serve senior citizens living in the surrounding area of Washington District of Columbia. But as it progressed, the Georgetown retirement residence began accepting senior citizens from other states as well. Retirees from the military and other state agencies could be admitted into the organization to receive assisted living services. The initial purpose of the organization has changed over the years as it shifted from the nursing home to a retirement home. The idea of a retirement home is based on the provision of assisted living to the elderly. Therefore, Georgetown retirement residence, like several retirement homes provides additional personal services for the clients. The focus of nursing homes are mainly medical services and become necessary when a patient needs an all round the clock attention. However, the organization had to change into an assisted living facility for the patients who do not need an all round the clock supervision and medical attention.
Mission/Values/Philosophy
The mission of the organization is to provide senior citizens with the comfort they deserve through quality lifestyle, health and well being services. The organization believes that the senior citizens or retirees should be able enjoy their lives in retirement with peace of mind, style and comfort. This is the philosophy upon which Georgetown retirement residence is based. Through this philosophy, the organization is able to improve the quality of service offered to its clients. The organization makes it easy for the seniors to satisfy their needs at that age simply by standing on its own organizational values.
Programs and services
As mentioned earlier, the organization provides seniors citizens with their own comfortable and highly secured suits. Each of the clients is allocated an apartment with easy access in the numerous attractive services. There are numerous programs and services provided by the organization. These programs aim at ensuring the clients living within the suits are taken care of. There are common rooms onsite which make the residents always be active and engaged to entertaining activities. For instance, there are barber shops and beauty parlor which the senior citizens can use to have their hair cut or styled. It is not enough to just spend time in the barber shops and beauty parlors; there are also libraries for those who enjoy spending their free time reading books, magazines and newspapers.
In addition to this, the libraries also have computer labs where the clients can spend time accessing information on the internet while at the same time use the internet for social networking. Some of the common rooms give them the opportunity to join their neighbors for various indoor games activities, fitness and educational programs. The activities are normally made to be fun so that the clients can enjoy them. The organization has employed several full time activity directors. The directors have to ensure that each of the activities at least meet the taste of each client. However, there are certain activities that majority of the clients love. These include: art classes, weekly shopping trips, trivia competitions, movie nights, wine social, coffee social, volunteer opportunities, sing a longs, art classes, Bible studies, theoretical plays, concerts by local musicians, historical presentations, and baking demonstrations. The above described programs and services focus on the lifestyle of the clients while at residing at the apartments.
Additional programs and services focus on their health and well being. The organization ensures that the client’s physical and mental health is taken care of and that the clients do not have to suffer from any stress related diseases. As it can be noted, at old age many people usually suffer from depression and loneliness. However, at the Georgetown retirement residence, support staff and nurses work all round the clock to ensure that the clients do not have to feel lonely or be depressed. Therefore, professional nurses work in the building 24 hours a day. The nurses basically help the patients by giving them the medical attention they need. They remind them to take their medications and regularly perform checks on them. For instance, their vital signs have to be constantly checked to ensure that they are within the normal range which does not call for any alarm. In addition, the nurses are required to plan the diets. There is a particular diet which suits the body requirement of the aged. Different clients also have different dietary needs. Some of the clients may be diabetic requiring special diet, while others may have different health conditions with special dietary needs. Therefore, each client has to be placed under a diet based on their health needs. There are also onsite physicians and medical professions such as therapists to provide therapy services and quick medical checkups.
As mentioned earlier, the organization has one of the highly accredited hospitals according to the American Medical review. The hospital is very nearby the apartments such that, in case of any emergency of medical attention proximity does not have to be an issue. Lastly, there are also social workers who provide counseling services to the clients. As mentioned, some of the elders may require counseling needs because of several reasons including loneliness and family issues. Social workers therefore, play a very important role counseling the clients.
The organization registers clienteles from the surrounding area of Washington DC. The clients are mainly 70 years and above. Most of them are retired citizens who obviously cannot work any longer and require special medical and personal care. According to projections of the area population, the number of people aged more than 65 years is expected to grow and further creating the need for the services provided within the retirement homes. Serving this demographic or clientele base can be challenging sometimes. Some of the challenges the organization faces when serving the elderly include: the growing aging population, chronic disability that comes as a result of ageing and delivery issues. There is just a certain age where old people would have disability. At this later age, they would begin to suffer from various chronic illnesses and functional disability. Caring for this group can prove challenging for the support staff and the medical staff. In addition, the ageing population in America is fast growing and sometimes the facility is faced with a situation where they cannot accommodate everyone in need of the assisted living. This requires the organization to think of expansion plans in response to the growing need for assisted living.
The programs and services offered in the organization are constantly subjected to evaluation in order to ensure that they are effective. There is a team for quality check assurance responsible for performing regular checks to ensure that the services meet the needs of the clients. The clients and their families are involved in the evaluation of the services. This is because the organization aims to center its services on the needs of the clients and not its own needs. The organization realizes that the nurses, clinicians, and support staff have a huge role to play in the management of care for the elderly, and therefore requires that this team of health professionals make a constant collaborative management approach with family members as well as the patients. This approach has ensured that the patients with functional disability and chronic diseases live longer with while managing the diseases rather than allowing deterioration of the diseases.
Structure
Georgetown retirement residence is a for-profit organization. The clients are required to make some payments on monthly basis which covers their stay within the apartments and all the lifestyle, health and well being services. The amount paid every month for all these services is $3750. Most of the clients pay for their residence in the suits out of their own pocket. However, long term insurance policy covers also include the assisted living services received in retirement homes. This means that the clients with such insurance covers are paid for the services by the insurance companies. Medicaid as well as other government programs covers for assisted living services once an individual develops the need for such services. At the same time, the Georgetown retirement residence can make payment arrangement that suit the needs of the clients.
The Georgetown retirement residence has a board of trustees who mainly are the ultimate decision makers in the organization. It has a chief executive director in charge of retirement living, general manager in charge of development and asset management, a second general manager in charge of commercial services, a third general manager in charge of client services, and the head of finance and reporting. Most of the executive members and board members are people experienced in the field of assisted living and retirement living. The following is a chart of the organizational structure.
The management board at Georgetown Retirement Residence is charged with the responsibility of administration and development of the hospital. This comprises of 11 members. The secretary to the board is also the director of the hospital. The board established committees in order to ensure that the management is efficient. They include: Establishment committee which deals with formulating personnel policies and guidelines. It prepared the terms of service for the hospital’s employees; Finance tender board committee which handles the organization’s tenders and quotations; and Maintenance and development committee which is mandated to identify the hospital’s development and maintenance needs and set priorities and identify programs that address the needs.
Medical social work is a department in Georgetown Retirement Residence which falls under the organization’s clinical services. The department is headed by the head of department assisted by two deputy heads of department, one in charge of the outpatient social work department and the other one in charge of the inpatient social work department. Its major role is therapeutic care and discharge planning for patients among others. The department can be identified by its mediatory, liaison, networking and research functions that link patients with hospital care and their communities.
Organizational culture
In Georgetown Retirement Residence, staffs are provided with training which enhances their capacity and effectiveness in work. They are urged to treat patients equally without discrimination. Unity is urged in all aspect of working environment at Georgetown Retirement Residence, members are advised to corporate with other co-workers or students. Love peace and togetherness are the pillars for holding a bond. The organization has a culture that brings out the best in every employee. Workers with different responsibilities get to enjoy performing their work because the environment is motivating. The leadership and management are aware of the benefits of having motivated workers and therefore contribute greatly to employee morale. There are numerous incentives provided to employees in order to boost their levels of motivation. The organization also encourages individual and team performance. Employees and teams that perform well after appraisals are rewarded attractively based on their performance. The threshold of performance is standard. Every employee is expected to at least perform within the required standards. Superior performance involves a performance much higher than the required standards. The organization gives incentives for superior performance. With this culture in place, the organization has witnessed low employee turnover.
Conclusion
As noted in this report, there are many issues involved in the care and management of the elderly. This has therefore raised challenging situations in caring for the elderly. In order to address these challenges, several approaches can be used. One such approach is working closely with the patients and their families. Elderly people usually suffer from functional disabilities, stress related illnesses, and chronic disease. Working closely with the patients and their families can help improve the quality of care provided to the clients. Caring for the elderly also requires a multidisciplinary team working in collaboration. Even though the organization already has this team in place, there is need for more corporation and collaboration among the staff team in order to improve the quality of service. The organization can also decide go hi-tech and introduce personal service robots to perform certain functions for the clients. Robots that can read emotions and engage the elderly people in counseling conversations can be introduced into the organization to assist the human workers and nurses. The same robots can be used to raise alarm whenever a client needs immediate attention in addition to keeping checks of the clients’ vital signs. These robots can be effective to reduce the frustrations that staff members sometimes face. The organization can easily adopt the ideas judging from the organizational culture. There are no communication barriers between employees and management. Communication is not one-way but two-way making it easier for employees to approach management.
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