Sarah Chimbanga, Regional Director of Health and Wellness at Era Living, joins Suzanne. She's based at their University House Wallingford community.

The number one question a family faces during a transition is whether they can trust the senior living community with the care of their loved one. The Washington State Department of Social and Health Services conducts DSHS Surveys to make sure the facilities are keeping the resident at the center, are following regulations that residents are well cared for. It lets them go through staff, records, and make sure they're following the regulations. A team from DSHS comes through for three days. It's a great resource for families, to look through these audits and see what are the findings. Era Living takes pride in their Survey results.

If a resident has been in independent living and they need to go into assisted living, Sarah talks about that situation. "We call it the transition. When a resident moves in independent, we talk about in the future, should you need assistance, the same care team that you see in the community will be ideally the same one that's helping facilitate that transition. So any time a resident has a change in condition, and they are coming to us and saying I'm gonna need some assistance with, let's say dressing, we sit down with the resident, we sit down with their family if they have family involved, or we sit down with your representative if they have a representative, we say what are some of the issues? What have been the changes? We also reach out to their provider to say, what are some of the changes? What are some of the health conditions that we can help manage? Using all of that information, we then put together a plan of care that best meets the needs of the resident at the time of the transition. And again, going back to our model for licensing, which is flexible licensing, most of the time it does not warrant a need for the resident to move out of their apartment. They have moved in independent, they're now needing assistance, we're able to bring that assistance to their current apartment.

“We really want to make sure that whenever safe and possible that we're able to let our residents age in place. Sometimes just depending on the community and depending on the residents needs, we may be able to bring in additional resources that would help facilitate them. We know moving in is a big deal, and it's a big stressor. So is the other flip side, needing to move out and find a new home, get used to a new care team. So we try to work with residents and families as much as we can while keeping the resident's safety as primary. If we can bring in additional resources, then we're willing to stretch and make sure that whatever we can do in-house, we do that.”

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