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!