The Nursing Home Podcast

Sara Well spent 12 years as a critical care trauma nurse on the acute side. She watched again and again as her facility’s money was put into much less pressing issues than staffing and saw how it impacted not just care and quality outcomes but overall revenue.

She saw how archaic many of the systems in place for staffing were, and with her tech background realized that this comprehensive issue was a scalable solution with a huge add...

After returning from military service, Eric Alvarez got his start in academia before moving to healthcare and delving into startups. It was this time working with students that led him to the idea of Grapefruit Health. 

By the year 2026 healthcare will be short by 3.2 million healthcare workers. Eric states that many of the current solutions for this problem greatly reduce performance and output while driving up costs. 

The year 2030...

Erica has had 30 years of experience as a nursing home administrator and specializes in regulatory compliance. 

Her nonprofit senior living campus is so excellent at staffing retention that they have managed successfully to never bring in outside agencies. 

In today's senior care facilities, where administrators constantly struggle to keep staff from leaving, this is an incredible achievement. Erica outlines some of the means by whic...

Sam Gopinathan only got started in his field after the 2008 recession when he was forced to leave his job as a mechanical engineer. But Sam didn’t get into his current field by chance.  

After a life-changing experience of helping to provide relief to a community devastated by a natural disaster, he learned that establishing a connection is a fundamental foundation of caring for others.  

He decided to work in home health care becaus...

Lindsay Mclaughlin is an expert multitasker! Managing to juggle running a successful full-time venture, teaching others to do the same, and being a working mom, she wears many hats.

Her high-poweredness can be seen in the fact that she recorded this episode with us only a few days after the birth of her new baby! 

Despite going into nursing school, Lindsay knew for a long time that she wanted to be self employed before her thirties.

D...

Nebras Hayek’s incredible career in marketing throughout multiple industries is the result of her high-powered mindset and can-do attitude.  

Though she has worked in a number of interesting places, Nebras got into healthcare marketing partly through the connections she made while hosting events for various healthcare related groups.

In addition to her intensive day job, she is also an active military combat engineer in North Carolin...

Having served as assistant administrator at a small facility with extensive experience in the senior care industry, Avi Richman understands the extreme challenges facilities face these days in staffing

There is a constant fight over employees and many states cap admissions when a facility is only operating at very low levels of staff. 

Many facilities attempt to address the problem of staffing through working on their public appearan...

During her research into health disparities at John Hopkins, Athena witnessed the difficulties that aspiring healthcare workers who were underprivileged and financially insecure had in starting their career. 

Single parents who were already working paycheck to paycheck could not afford to put themself through a CNA training program. 

There is also the issue of overcomplication and outdatedness present in CNA training school sign-ups....

As a clinical psychologist with over twelve years of experience in the senior living space, Dr. Jennifer Stelter has a lot of experience with dementia. 

Dr. Jennifer is critical of the idea that pharmacological methods are the only way to address mental health conditions and she strives to provide knowledge of non-pharmacological tools and coping skills that can be used firstly. 

Together with her business partner Jessica Ryan, biolo...

Having worked on the front lines with hundreds of nursing homes to develop effective infection control strategies, Dr. Buffy got a firsthand look at the way in which these facilities were targeted during the height of the pandemic.

She was moved by the stories she heard and problems she observed, to write her best selling novel Broken which highlights the difficulties faced by nursing homes in implementing infection control. 

Most of...

1. It's time for a mindset shift. Recruitment needs to be as important as census and marketing. You can even use some of the same resources and people to promote your recruitment activities. 
2. Go out to your local supermarket and stop anyone with scrubs and offer them an interview. Find out where else they're hanging out and develop a presence there on or offline. 
3. Improve the interview process. Treat them like royalty and make them ...

Jennifer has been a practicing physiotherapist for 14 years, and shares about her experiences and what she has learned in this space, as a podcaster, author, and speaker.

She served as her dad’s caregiver for many years while he was housebound and through this experience can empathize and understand the struggles of residents and their families.

Most times, going into long term care is no one’s choice and therefore its essential for ...

After the loss of his grandparent, who received terrible treatment in rehab after surgery, Ryan resolved to address some of the issues in post-acute care by buying a software company already active in that space and using his expertise to build it up. 

VoiceFriend addresses the problem of inefficient communication faced in facilities where the many different stakeholders, including residents, families, and employees make for a quagm...

Jana has represented many healthcare clients and serves as the outside general counsel for a large healthcare entity. 

The False Claims Act was created to address fraud being perpetrated against the government. To free up government time and resources, private individuals referred to as relators were permitted to bring those suits. 

Relators have to be an original source with inside information. In healthcare-related cases, they are ...

Fast and efficient communication is vital in senior care, and may often be the difference between life or death.

Even disregarding such dire medical circumstances, a typical facility must constantly interface with numerous parties including residents, their families, employees, and external vendors at all times.

Needless to say, without adequate methods in place to streamline all these fractured lines of interaction, accidents are bo...

As an occupational therapist with an MBA who has, at one point, been responsible for 120 facilities at one time, Jean is an expert in both the care and business sides of senior care. 

With his groundbreaking new designs and programs conceived to influence the lives, thought processes and social engagement of residents, he has become recognized as an incredible innovator in the space. 

Jean’s buildings are structured to engage all fiv...

Adam Lewis is the CEO of Apploi, a hiring software company centered around healthcare. 

With a background in HR, he has spent lots of time working with healthcare companies to identify and remove roadblocks in their job application processes. 

Two of the largest problems often encountered in healthcare recruiting are: how to attract more candidates into the application funnel and how to successfully move them through said funnel. 

To ...

Jeffrey is the founder and CEO of Cambridge Realty Capital, a real estate company centered around the nursing and senior care market that has made over 500 transactions in that space.

From his own experience, he states that those looking to make their first nursing home real estate deal and become an operator often possess experience in the industry but lack the funds.

For this reason, it is essential for first-time deal-makers to fi...

Quanisah Bernard is a talented and experienced CNA and, with more than fourteen years of the profession under her belt, has a deep knowledge of the ins and outs of CNA culture.

After graduating from high-school in 2006 she started working at a nursing home in the dietary department. Soon after, she took a month-long CNA class which kicked off her journey as a CNA. 

Since Quanisah had entered her first facility right after high-school...