NaCCRA Forum: Resident Engagement

Vi at Highlands Ranch, a for-profit type A CCRC, does annual resident satisfaction surveys as well as employee satisfaction surveys. Periodically, each department head addresses the community at a Town Hall, discussing the results for their department and action plans to correct any deficiencies. As far as I know, all Vi Living communities do annual RSS’s.

At our CCRC in NJ, we just completed a resident satisfaction survey administered by Holleran. I don't know if it is a state requirement. I will try to find out and do a followup post

Maura, I thought you might be able to say what states now do this survey for those in independent living.

Linda Kilcrease

Resident of a CCRC

Hi Linda,

My article in Lifeline, available on this site, titled Ageism: The Last Socially Acceptable Discrimination is on page 4 of Issue No1, 2023. There are references at the end of the article. I use Google Scholar which carries the academic and professional literature. The field is changing rapidly, so there may be more facilities using resident feedback systems.

The bottom line is that independent living retirement communities rarely use such forms. They rely on the resident's council which is cumbersome, slow, and above all, not confidential, so residents won't use them for any issue that would likely reveal personal information.

Service industries of all kinds use consumer feedback as a process improvement tool, but not retirement communities. This makes no sense at all, given the high fees we are paying them for the services they provide. I believe that lack of such information gathering tools is an indicator of ageism. Such forms that are collected and disposed of without action is just as bad.

Keep us posted on what you discover.

Thanks for your comments.

Maura

Maura - You say, "regular satisfaction forms are only mandatory in Independent Living is a few states."

Can you list some states that do? I want to research this and learn what specifically is done.

Linda Kilcrease

Resident of a CCRC

General Feedback Independent Living:

Regular, systematic and, above all, confidential is non-existent. However, feedback on general issues of a simple nature and relevant to all is encouraged (dining services, grounds, dogs, entertainment, etc.) It is a long, drawn out process. The feedback input to and from the Resident's Council is processed by management before being sent to the Residents Council, and after the Residents Council has processed it, before being presented to the community at large. The pretense is that the council's work is confidential because management took the names off of the paperwork. This sounds good on the surface, however misses a lot.

What Is Missing:

Many issues that need to be brought up are of a private, personal nature that, the act of reporting them at all, would reveal the name of the reporter by inference. Residents know this consciously, or intuitively, and remain silent fearing their name will enter the gossip cycle or create backlash.

Process Improvement:

Services businesses of all types use customer feedback forms to improve service, to identify their superstars, and figure out which employees are rude, abusive, and below standard. They need, and want to know, "how are we doing." When businesses want this information they make the process simple, quick, easy, and then use the information gleaned to improved their product. Who decides? Airlines, hotels, hospitals, travel services, restaurants do not get to decide how good the product they produce is. The customer evaluates the quality of the product and needs a confidential way to be heard.

Value Received:

CCRC services are high-end and very costly services. Easily accessible, rapid, and regular satisfaction forms are only mandatory in Independent Living is a few states. They should be mandatory in all states.

We live at Goodwin House Bailey's Crossroads. The Administration uses the Holleran Survey as a tool to poll the residents. Our Resident Council also does a survey of resident's with the administration providing access to Survey Monkey. A sub group of the council designs the survey. Currently we are in process of completing one which focuses on what is going well and what can be improved. The results will be presented to the community on April 8. The committees under the council will then work with the administration to resolve any issues.

Our community has not done any kind of resident satisfaction or engagement survey since 2017, when they applied for CARF certification. When it came time to renew the certification, management decided not to re-certify because it "takes a lot of time and we don't need it anymore since we have a waiting list now."

That should tell you something about management's attitude toward residents. IMHO they badly need a real survey such as Holleran but there is absolutely no way to get them to do it.

A couple of years ago they said they were going to do one and then they backtracked saying they wanted to make sure they did it right. I think they were going to use Survey Monkey!

Historically resident satisfaction surveys was different than a resident engagement survey. Here is a link to a 2017 white paper that discusses the topic.

https://assets-global.website-files.com/6350502afceee9721745888d/64b564e5a2a000c183f6e87b_ResEng.pdf

Ann MacKay

Charlestown

There was mention of Resident Satisfaction Surveys (is that different from resident "engagement" surveys?) in the General Forum here. Holleran was mentioned. You'll need to scroll down to find it.

At Ingleside at King Farm in Rockville, MD, we used to do the Holleran survey but have switched to ServiceTrac. The results of the last one of those surveys have come in and action plans are being prepared on the key issues. We do a lot of our own surveys and one of those is currently in progress, drawing in things from various committees who need input. We have a Quality of Life and Care Committee which is a joint management-resident committee which honchos all the survey work.

Bill Samuel

Charlestown, Catonsville, Md does the Holleran Survey every year. We skipped 2020, 2021. The results came back in December. The results are briefed in January and are briefed on the action plans for areas that need improvement monthly.

Yes, Heron's Key in Gig Harbor, WA has an independent company, Halloran, conduct an in depth survey about every three years and the results are shared with residents. In addition, they also conduct a survey of employee satisfaction. That information is not always shared with residents, but I believe is shared with staff. Results are also reported for communities nationwide and comparisons between communities are reported.

Yes our community does periodic resident surveys. Administration sends out a batch every month or so and then aggregates the information and presents the information at our resident association meetings. They continually remind us to fill out the survey if we have received one. I live at Cypress Cove in Ft Myers, FL

Roberta

Does your community do periodic resident engagement surveys? If so, how often, who initiates and runs them and are the results shared with all residents? Thanks.