Keep on keeping on

Hi Friends,

I've heard from several of you via email that you haven't been able to access my blog. Hopefully that has been remedied with the help of my friend, Rebecca Wilson, who takes care of all things techy at the Council of Health and Human Service Ministries of the UCC. I'm writing from CHHSM's annual meeting.

Before any more time gets away, I want to share my experience at my first sabbatical visit - Evangelical Homes of Michigan. Led by my colleague Denise Rabidoux, EHM is another UCC sponsored agency that serves primarily older people within the Ann Arbor area. They also have an important rehab presence in Sterling Heights, a satellite suburb of Detroit.

Denise and her team have taken an organization that was largely nursing home based to one that offers a much broader spectrum of services over the past decade. Included in their spectrum of care is a market rate CCRC, a nursing home, day care center, memory support center/adult day health program, hospice program and a very wide range of home health services. They are close to launching a very innovative program (I'd tell you the name but I'd have to kill you.) that will provide all the benefits of a CCRC contract delivered to the place you call home. In other words, they are launching a CCRC without walls model.

The CCRC w/o walls model is growing in popularity in the US. EMH has a step up on the implementation of this sophisticated delivery model because they are already adept at delivering a wide range of services in the community - everything from meals on wheels to Medicare certified home health. And lots in between!

The work done at EHM is impressive, but the team is even more so. Denise has drawn professionals from outside the field of long term care to lead within the organization. Take Steve Hopkins for example. He owned a well respected personal training company that emphasized a holistic approach to health and wellness. When EHM decided to get serious about a wellness program, they looked to Steve to lead the charge. More recently, Denise brought on Jim Alspach to help them with new product development. Jim hails from a manufacturing background - an environment know for discipline and clean process in product (think program) development.

Another team member that really impressed me was Nancy Swierz. Nancy joined the team about two and a half years ago, bringing an expertise in home health and home care with her. Instead of trying to reinvent a wheel, EHM bought two struggling home care agencies, one licensed and one nonlicensed. Nancy's job was to teach a team of coworkers who were largely from institutionally based settings about home health and to prevent them from casting an institutional shadow over it. From what I observed, she did a great job. Passion and a standard of excellence showed in her eyes.

I cannot chronicle all my take-aways here, but suffice it to say that I learned a great deal. Some of what I will take home is empirical - how, what, when...But a key driver in EHM's success is clearly the less tangible: an entrepreneural spirit, strong and collegial team mates, a passionate belief in the mission that is shared across all parts of their continuum, and real leadership development at every level of the organization.

As I said earlier, Denise and her team have set the bar quite high for all the visits that will follow. I'm grateful to her and to every member of their team for the kindness, generosity of time, and the real hospitality shown to me. The food and wine were pretty good too!

God bless,

Peggy