Service Improvement in Long Term Care Corporate Departments

The Challenge

Significant growth through acquisition of many new Retirement and Long Term Care Homes over the past few years resulted in new processes and procedures being brought in house by each company that was acquired.

The culture at Chartwell had grown into a very reactionary, fire-fighting and troubleshooting environment. Staff at all levels would jump in and try to help and assist with whatever problem was being faced by a home, often leading to confusion, duplication of effort and rework for those involved. Processes weren’t standardized and band-aid solutions were implemented just to get through any given crisis occurring at the time.

The solution to this issue had historically been data collection and dissemination. Reports that were generated were overwhelming, not actionable and misunderstood by the management team.

A project was designed to streamline corporate management and support activities to the Homes by working with a wide geographical cross section of support departments:

• Retirement Operations
• Long Term Care Operations
• Asset Management
• Purchasing
• Sales & Marketing
• Compliance

The Results

An annualized financial improvement of an 8% to the bottom line generated a first year 145% return on the one time project investment. Some examples of the changes implemented and sustained are as follows:

• Improved the organizational structure to remove duplication of effort between areas and ensured that span of control is appropriate and
• Standardized weekly metrics in Operational and Marketing areas to ensure all levels of the organization were working towards the same overall goals using the same
• Rebalanced home assignments to streamline communication and reduce redundant
• Created a Master Schedule for systematic rollout of approved changes to Homes to ensure smooth and orderly transition to refined procedures and
• Established guidelines for ensuring all strategic initiatives and business improvements were measurable and provided actual value to the bottom
• Revamped departmental meetings to increase focus on organizational
• Implemented operational site-visit agendas to improve the value of a site visit to a
• Enhanced outbreak reporting to allow for better tracking and analysis of
• Introduced templates for Programs and Policies to better position initiatives before resources are
• Created an error log to identify Homes who don’t follow standardized processes in order to notify Operational groups to take action and support the non

The Client Experience

“The improvements for Chartwell coming out of your review have exceeded my expectations. The teams are looking at their issues differently and are using a significantly different approach to problem solving. Accountability and focus have been improved with better clarification of job functions.”

President & CEO, Chartwell Seniors Housing REIT