Seniorsfirst Communities Update

We held our routine board of director's meetings at both Valley Manor and Kirkhaven this past week so I thought I'd share some highlights from the reports made.

Our Occupancy at Valley Manor Apartments is at 86%, which is lower than the 92% we budgeted. Of the 19 vacant apartments, 14 continue to be the smaller one-bedrooms, which have proven to be less desirable. Our prospects continue to want the larger apartments. We have only one apartment and one studio suite vacant in the Assisted Living facility. Our average number of clients attending the adult day program increased 20% last month to 19.5 per day. The break even point is closer to 24 clients/day, so we need further growth.

Cheryl Smith (Executive Director) and Jim Payne (VP of Marketing & Community Services) presented a series of proposed strategies designed to improve our Valley Manor occupancy. These strategies include pricing modifications, marketing tactics and facility modifications. All of which spring from the evaluation and recommendations from the Greystone strategic analysis project.

In the quality assurance arena, we recently completed our annual resident satisfaction survey at Valley Manor and with 62% of our residents responding, our average score was 1.3 on a scale of 1 (Exceptional) to 4 (Unsatisfactory). Our score in 2006 was also an impressive 1.6. We're obviously doing things right and our residents are noticing and appreciative.

At Kirkhaven, occupancy stands at 94.4% versus our budget objective of 96.3%. The good news is that we continue to do a remarkable job with our Medicare and HMO utilization, which is the highest paying source of revenue. The education and training of our clinical team has resulted in significant maximization of both our Medicare utilization and rates. Keep up the great work!

We have worked out an interim agreement with ViaHealth's "RGH Geriatrics"for physician services at Kirkhaven. This interim agreement will run from October 1 through December 31 while we work out the details of a longer term agreement. We are delighted to be working with the RGH Geriatrics team, which will now include our current Physician Assistant, Lynn Wengender, who will continue to provide services for Kirkhaven.

Amanda Brown (Kirkhaven Administrator) continues to lead her senior leadership team along our Pathway's journey for culture change. Her team is beginning to take the Pathway's philosophy and teachings to all staff with a video presentation and learning circles. A key concept of our Pathway journey is that the "new Kirkhaven" is not just about a new building, but a new person-centered philosophy of care. We have come a long way on this journey!

Speaking of the "new Kirkhaven", we met with our architects last week and reviewed the latest design concepts based on all our previous input and discussion. The design looks awesome and it is so neat to watch our vision start to come "alive" right before our eyes. Its only on paper, but it is starting to feel so real! We are starting the process of dealing with the local planning board and due diligence requirements associated with the property in Brighton which we are interested in for the new Kirkhaven project. This will likely be a long and exhausting process as planning boards have intense demands and desires, which they impose on all prospective land developers. Should be interesting!

We are in the midst of our annual Employee Opinion Survey process, which enables staff to provide confidential input and feedback on many aspects of their satisfaction level working at Seniorsfirst. Our independent consultants will compile the results and share them with us in the near future. This is a great tool for us all to better understand what we do well and what we need to improve on in our goal to be an employer of choice. I encourage all staff to participate in this opportunity to voice your opinions.

That's a quick update for now. Check back next week for another progress report and to learn what's new from the perspective of the CEO. Thanks for visiting my Blog and have a great week!

The Bisque is Back

As Summer fades, kids go back to school and Fall is in the air, it is also time for the annual Lobster Bisque Fund-Raiser to help raise funds to support the Alzheimer's programs at Seniorsfirst.

For those who don't know the history, several years ago we purchased the building that formerly was the Dicken's Restaurant and was famous for its home-made lobster bisque. Today, our Assisted Living and Adult Day & Respite facility sit where the Dicken's once was. When we purchased the property, we also got the secret recipe to the bisque. Once a year, we sell the bisque at various drive-thru locations across the Rochester area and every year the folks come out to "get their bisque fix" and support the Seniorsfirst mission.

Here I am hawking a sale to a happy customer at our new site out at Bethany Presbyterian Church in Greece.

Additionally, we had teams out at Perinton Presbyterian Church on the East side, Gates Presbyterian Church on the West Side and of course our main distribution site at Valley Manor Apartments in the City.

The most fun (besides raising money for a good cause) is hearing all the great stories about people's memories of the bisque lunches at the old Dicken's restaurant. They also like to share their favorite bisque recipes and special occasion dinner events when they bring out the bisque.


We won't have a final count on sales until next week, but the early indication is that the weak economy had a definite impact on what was an otherwise perfect day for our event. Sales were down nearly 40% at all sites, but we still sold over 1600 cans of soup!

The good news is we will continue to sell the bisque on the web (www.seniorsfirstonline.com) on a mail-order basis until we sell out. They make great Christmas gifts and a perfect start to your next special dinner party. It's a great soup for a great cause!

In other news, the Strategic Planning and Executive Committees of the Board each held regular meetings recently. The primary agenda was a review of the progress and continuing plans related to our major initiatives at Kirkhaven and Valley Manor. Nothing new to report, other than our continued quest with all our projects and the boards full support and assistance.

We have held additional meetings and evaluations with respect to our search for a replacement physician group to serve our upcoming needs at Kirkhaven. We have made significant progress with this and expect to have a formal announcement soon. We have also been working with our new pharmacy on a plan of correction to improve performance related to the start-up and transition of this critical service. We are optimistic about their responsiveness to our concerns and desire to meet our expectations.

This week we have both our Valley Manor and Kirkhaven board meetings. I will share any pertinent information from those meetings in my next blog update.

I'll be walking in the ALS Walk this weekend in support of that worthwhile cause. Thank you so much to the many people who responded so positively to my previous blog posting (Bob's Story). Your support is greatly appreciated. I will continue to accept contributions payable to ALS in sponsorship of my walking until the end of the week.

Have a great week and thanks for visiting my blog. (p.s.- I think blogspot is in the pacific coast time zone and thus my often morning blog posts get recorded as 4 hours earlier. Didn't want you to think I was up that early blogging away.)

"Bob's Story"

Bob is my father-in-law. A man I first met as a kid when he built a camp for his family next door to our family camp on Indian Lake in the Adirondacks. He always took a shine to what those DeVoe boys were doing next door and never said no to our constant requests to borrow something or ask for his help.

Bob was a family man who loved to socialize, cook out on the grill, smoke a pipe and enjoy life to the fullest. He was also a fly fisherman who
liked to tie his own flies, find a piece of God's land somewhere and bond with nature and life.

Truth be told, I don't know if he was a great fisherman, but I know when he put on his waders and toted his rod and creel to a secluded mountain lake, he was in heaven.

Bob was also a school superintendent in northeastern New York. He was known for his dedication and support to the students, families, faculty and school board.

Bob passed away at a relatively young age (64) in 1994 when he was stricken with ALS (Lou Gehrig Disease). He is missed by all his family and friends, but we know he has found an eternal "fishing hole" in God's kingdom and is at peace with the world.

On Saturday, September 27, I will be joining the rest of his family and walking in the ALS Walk as "Bob's Bandits" to help raise funds and awareness towards ALS. If you would like to help support us in this cause, I would greatly appreciate you sponsoring me at any level you can. You can send me a check payable to ALS and direct it to me at Kirkhaven.

When I think of Bob, perhaps my own greatest disappointment is that he passed away before he knew that the last thing this DeVoe boy "asked" of him, was for his daughter's hand in marriage. But then again, I think he knows..............................................

Back to Business

With Labor Day behind us and cooler weather before us, thus starts the unofficial end of Summer. Time to re-focus our minds on the business at hand. Not that the last few months have not had their fill of work and accomplishments, but vacations do make it difficult to get everyone together or to initiate team-driven projects.

The next few months will include the following major corporate initiatives:

• Engineering & other inspections, zoning investigation and approvals associated with the proposed new site for Kirkhaven.


• Final design strategies, cost estimates & financial analysis associated with the Kirkhaven Replacement Project.


• Action plans & financial analysis for the Valley Manor Repositioning Project associated with the Greystone recommendations.


• Governance Committee board member recruitment & board structure evaluation.


• Annual Lobster Bisque fund-raiser (September 19).


• Annual Seniorsfirst Gala fund-raiser (October 25).


• Development of marketing, sales and fund-raiser video productions.


• Upgrade & modifications to websites.


• Employee Opinion (satisfaction) survey.


• Physician group/Medical Director recruitment for Kirkhaven.


• 2009 operating budget preparation.


• Medicaid rate audit settlement.


• Major Capital Campaign strategy & planning to support Kirkhaven Replacement Project.


• Peer Review (dispute resolution) program development.


• Compensation system review.


• Pathways (culture change) soil warming at Kirkhaven.


• Leadership & conversity training.

This is an impressive "to-do list" and will certainly keep us all active and focused on our organizational goals and objectives.

In other news................we did reach a final agreement on the purchase and sale agreement for the land on South Clinton Avenue targeted for the Kirkhaven Replacement Project. We have nearly two years built into the purchase offer contingencies to accomplish the many inspections, details, approvals and financing requirements necessary for this project.

...........we still await specifics on the newly adopted State Budget revisions. As usual, we were spared many of the devastating proposed cuts but did take a "hit" with other cuts that were passed. Ironically, the State is currently finalizing Medicaid rate add-ons that represent the initial phase-in of the promised new nursing home reimbursement (re-basing) methodology which will release over 300 million in long-awaited funds for 2007 and 2008 reimbursement. It will be interesting to see the net result when the cuts and add-ons are both factored into the new rates. I'm guessing that in the final analysis it will be a case of "a promise made is a promise not kept".

So hold on tight as we enter into this hectic, yet exciting, phase of 2008. Our goals are lofty and the challenges are stiff, but the rewards are priceless from the perspective of the mission we serve.

Be sure to visit my Blog each week for updates on the progress of these initiatives and anything new that comes along. Thanks for visiting!

(picture 1- ripening grapes on our arbor as Fall approaches)

(picture 2- Fall flowers blooming in our gardens)