b'COVER STORYmom was in good hands and the staff said she had a great sleep that night in her new room.The secret behind the smiles? Careful planning, a steadfast focus on our resident-centred purpose, and our team pulling together with our family, community and government partners. All were instrumental in helping us hire and orient dozens of new staff, pass our pre-occupancy review, organize an enjoyable move-day experience with minimal disruption for residents,A musical performance was scheduled during the Meaford and meet our occupancy targetsopening to help welcome residents to the new homewithin the first 60 days of operation. Planning:Do sweat the small stufforganized, focused and on track,were invested in making this aTheres a saying about failing to plan.she says collaboration was essentialshared success.We knew that developing Meafordthroughout all planning stages.Long-Term Care Centre, and the otherOur best advice from the experience projects in our pipeline, required us to"It was important to involve the right make sure every inch of the home be strategic and set the organizationpeople along the way to help usis 110% ready for occupancy. Go over up for sustained success. Key areasmake decisions that would have aand above whats required. Put toilet of focus included building in-housepositive impact on both residents andpaper on every roll, make every single project management capacity andoperations, says Killing. We tappedbed, says Deb Cornell, peopleCares enhancing our existing network ofinto subject matter experts in our ownDirector of Accommodation. It makes external development partners organization and across our sector toa huge difference knowing anyone and consultants. leverage learnings and that supportedcould come through the door on It had been some time since webetter planning. inspection day and safely, comfortably opened a new home and so we tooklive, work or visit in the home.the opportunity to be very thoughtfulAs other long-term care organizations and thorough in our planning, sayswill be aware, the Ministry hasAlong with move-day planning, peopleCares Chief Financial Officerprioritized rapidly building newa significant amount of time and Iuliana Constantin. This enabled uslong-term care homes to improveeffort went into preparation of the to deliver the long-term care home inaccess to quality, resident-centredoccupancy plan, worksheets and Meafordin the midst of a pandemiccare and ease hallway health care.communication that enabled uson time and on budget. And it willThis includes enabling developmentto admit 60 new residents in 60 ensure we can effectively managethrough increased capital funding anddays. That work was led by Wendy multiple simultaneous projects modernized processes. going forward.Our Meaford pre-occupancy review Laying this type of groundwork alsotook place over several days. Each went a long way towards mitigatingday, the Ministry team worked closely issues that arose in these last couplewith our team, asking questions and of tumultuous years, such as marketidentifying areas that needed to be volatility, supply chain issues, risingaddressed. Each night, our team construction costs and increasedresolved any issues and gathered interest rates.required information to share back the next morning. The end result was an Construction was completed withinexemplary review passed withabout 16 months. Planning for theflying colours. opening, while maintaining existing operations in the old home mereThe Ministrys new tools and checklist blocks away, took about as long.are so valuable to understand how to thoroughly prepare, so we not only Jenn Killing, peopleCares Vicemet but exceeded their requirements President, Quality, Research andand expectations, which is always our Strategic Partnerships, led the openinggoal, says Killing. And we appreciated of the new Meaford Long-Term Carethe spirit of collaboration from their Home. Along with developing anteam. We felt they wanted the Home entirely new set of resources to stayto open as much as we did andwww.oltca.com LONG TERM CARE TODAY 9'