Fall is here, so for ABHOW residents, the annual resident opinion survey must be on its way – right? Wrong, actually. The company is going in a new direction starting in early 2012, one that will allow ABHOW to better gauge what’s working at the 11 continuing care retirement communities and more quickly make adjustments when something isn’t.
Working with new survey partner Press Ganey, ABHOW has moved from the traditional once-a-year survey that was sent to all CCRC residents – and in some cases, family members – in the fall. The new survey method will poll smaller groups of residents across all care levels at points throughout the year. That will help the company be more inclusive in terms of skilled nursing residents, many of whom are on campus for a short rehabilitative stay.
“Unless they happened to be on campus the last two weeks of October, those short-term residents weren’t included in the survey,” says Jeff Glaze, chief operations manager for the CCRCs.
Glaze says another benefit of the continuous surveying method is more sophisticated reporting of the data – which, for the first time, ABHOW will have full access to.
“If we want to run a special report to find out how an attribute is faring with a subset of residents, we can easily do that,” says Glaze. “That is going to help us react earlier in the process and fine-tune programs and services for our residents.”
Another first is that ABHOW residents will now have the option of taking the survey online, in addition to the standard paper method. And for anyone who’s ever taken a survey and wondered if their handwritten comments were really taken into account – Glaze says with this survey, they are. Press Ganey’s innovative software flags keywords and factors conversational responses into each report.
About ABHOW:
Founded in 1949, ABHOW is widely known for its pioneering leadership in senior housing and health care. The company serves more than 5,000 residents in 37 retirement communities in California, Arizona, Nevada and Washington.
To learn more about ABHOW visit www.abhow.com.
This article appeared in the October 2011 issue of ABHOW Words.
