Pamela Nisbet says they currently field about six calls a month from people in the community asking questions about issues related to long-term care. “Often we are doing referrals,” says Pamela, “but they know they can call us as an entry point.”

“I think that’s wonderful, to have that reputation in the community,” she says.

Pamela says building community rapport involves increasing their capacity to be a useful resource for families or community members. “We’ve discovered this with such things as our workgroup on dementia with the five counties in our area. Our community rapport also extends to tradeshows and job fairs or our palliative care booth we had just last week,” she adds.

The 111-bed home has had full occupancy for as long as Pamela can recall, and now has a waiting list of between 20-30 people. “Since no extra beds came to our area, we really weren’t affected by this, fortunately,” says Pamela.

Pamela says Woodland will also push for more family council initiatives, as well as for more volunteers to “bring community into the home.”

“We also need to focus on our recruitment and retention efforts. We’ve had a struggle of late, but we do have a committed core who have been here for a long time,” says Pamela. “So we have to find some innovative ways to look at recruitment and retention and I think our orientation will be a big focus for this,” she adds.

The administrator also wants to ensure that consistency of care for residents is at the forefront of the home’s vision. “We have to walk the talk with individual resident care. Of course this goes hand-in-hand with supportive measures,” she adds.

Pamela says that the cultivation of accountability, responsibility and empowerment must also be a focus this year for staff. “I hope that, with all the new projects here or coming, that more and more people will discover their own special interest areas. That will go a long way to helping create more personal accountability and empowerment,” she says.