For family members of long-term care residents, nothing is more important than trusting that their loved ones are safe.
And for these operators, few relationships are more valuable, or potentially vulnerable, than those with the families of their residents. These hidden stakeholders are integral to many decisions about care delivery, and their trust and satisfaction can impact a facility’s reputation, both online and in person.
In today’s post-pandemic environment, family satisfaction in long-term care is vital. These three steps will help providers deliver that satisfaction by instilling trust through transparency, engagement and convenience.
STEP 1: Follow top best practices for responsive communications, especially following grievances
When issues in care delivery arise, family complaints related to communications — or the lack thereof — follow. Proactive communication is a long-term care provider’s best approach to keeping family members calm and happy. It’s their way of putting their cards on the table and demonstrating transparency, establishing trust and mitigating reputation damage.
Most reasonable family members do not expect perfection. They simply expect providers to care about their concerns and take them seriously. Providers can follow these seven best practices for communicating with family members:
- Establish, and adhere to, expectations for addressing concerns in a timely manner.
- Express compassion and empathy
- Don’t get defensive
- Share information proactively, not just when HIPAA, or other guidelines, require
- Be the family’s first and best source of information
- Actions speak loudest: align your communications with your operations
- Communicate in good times and in bad
STEP 2: Maximize opportunities for family engagement and interaction
Regulatory and health and safety requirements resulting from COVID-19 have changed visitation processes and expectations at many long-term care facilities for the foreseeable future. Although in-person visitation has mostly resumed, communities must still build flexible and creative opportunities for family engagement — whether in person or not. Here are three ways that providers are maximizing family engagement in 2023:
- Make activity calendars easy to find. When families know what’s on the schedule, they can help remind and encourage their loved ones to participate. When possible, invite them to join in.
- Permanently integrate virtual platforms. Zoom, Skype, FaceTime and others served a critical role during the pandemic in keeping residents and families connected. Even with the resumption of many in-person visitation and activities, these platforms are ideal for group activities or family celebrations.
- Incorporate ample opportunities and channels for feedback. In addition to one-on-one interactions between family members and staff during care planning meetings, family members benefit from formal and informal surveys and reviews.
STEP 3 — Prioritize convenience for families and staff
Providing convenient access to information isn’t only a best practice. In some cases, it’s the law. The 21st Century Cures Act, for example, prohibits providers from delaying or inhibiting the availability of requested information, including from designated family members.
To ease access to information for families and staff while complying with laws and regulatory requirements, providers should seek affordable solutions that empower and equip families with easy access to information while also alleviating burdens on staff so they can focus on direct care.
This article is adopted from “Improve Family Satisfaction in Senior Care: Instill trust through transparency, engagement and convenience” and is sponsored by CareFeed, long-term care’s central place for seamless communication and engagement with residents, families, and staff. To read the full white paper, and to learn more about how CareFeed can help you build family satisfaction, visit carefeed.com.
