ins for a period of time because movers were not allowed into the community and admissions were paused in the skilled community due to a small COVID-19 outbreak, Allen says. “We are now seeing, after nearly three months, an increase in leads,” she says. “This may be due to the social isolation people are feeling at home, or adult children seeing their parents declining with the quarantine. We are hopeful that this increase in lead trend continues as there is definitely value in the community setting.” Until recently, Hover Senior Living in Longmont placed a hold on move-ins to the community at all three levels of care: independent living, assisted living and skilled nursing, Frederick says. At Avenida, occupancy in the active adult rental communities has increased over the past few months. The active adult
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community, which has highly amenitized apartment buildings and a full schedule of organized activities, is designed for those who are 55 and older. The average resident is 74 years old, outgoing, and very active, Tutunjian says. More than 65 percent of residents have sold their homes to come live at Avenida, so many have committed to a new, active lifestyle instead of being isolated at home.
Maintaining health standards
Temperature checks of staff members, frequent handwashing, and temporarily restricting visitors are all part of the new normal in many senior living communities. As an example, Balfour restricted family and other non-essential visitors a week ahead of public health officials instructions to do so. The
community also put a screening questionnaire into place and began temperature checking staff members before it was mandated. Cloth masks for residents were purchased and are frequently laundered for residents. Balfour also enacted measures to protect its employees, paying for home daycare for its associates on the Louisville campus once schools and daycares closed. The “Balfour Way” initiative increased pay for hourly employees during the pandemic. Also, early on, Balfour invested in the Everlywell test that could test symptomatic residents and staff at no cost because community testing wasn’t widely available. At Hover Senior Living, those in leadership positions have been participating in multiple weekly conference calls with appropriate government agencies to guide our response to the pandemic.
At Brookdale, outings have been canceled and leaders are leveraging digital opportunities and modified activities so they’re mindful of social distancing. For instance, instead of group exercises in a room, they are doing doorway classes, Klassen says.
Taking care of residents during these unprecedented times
Senior living communities have become exceptionally creative with programming during the pandemic to help keep residents connected while adhering to social distancing. During “Shelter in Place” orders, Avenida adapted programming to allow for physical distancing with the online zoom book clubs and socially distanced trivia games. “We are just beginning a slowphased “reopening” where we will be able to re-introduce our
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