Senior Care Academy - A Helperly Podcast

Navigating Senior Living Leadership with Riley Moore

• Stephen Richardson • Season 1 • Episode 4

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Have you ever wondered what it's like to be the only doctor in a small Kansas town, responsible for the health of an entire community? Rural healthcare is a world of its own, with unique challenges and profound impacts, something our guest Riley Moore knows all too well. From transportation director to executive director, Riley shares his journey through the multifaceted roles. His stories are a testament to the resilience and versatility necessary in these critical yet underserved areas. 

Transitioning roles can be like navigating a labyrinth, especially when stepping into an executive director position in a senior living facility. Riley opens up about his own experiences, from my nerve-wracking start at the Legacy House of Taylorsville to mastering the complex dynamics at Fairfield Village in Layton. 

Lastly, we unravel the fabric of personal connections in healthcare, how they're woven into the very core of patient satisfaction and staff retention.  Join us for a conversation that offers more than just insights into healthcare—it's an invitation to reflect on the service of caring and the lessons it imparts. Special thanks to Riley Moore for bringing his expertise and stories to the table, enriching this episode with his invaluable perspective.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome everybody. Welcome to the Senior Care Podcast. I'm excited to introduce our guest today. I'm Alex Aldridge. We're going to be joined by Riley Moore. He's a Utah native. He graduated from Weber State with a degree in healthcare administration services and an emphasis in long-term care, and he's worked as a former executive director. Riley, welcome, we're excited to have you. Tell us a little bit about yourself when did you grow up, and a little bit about that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, thanks, alex. I'm a native here to Utah, grew up in Orem, Utah, provo area and lived in Ogden while I was going to school at Weber State, so have stayed relatively close for the most part. I did serve an LDS mission so lived a couple years in Colorado and Kansas to experience the healthcare system and like rural healthcare out in a small town in Kansas and that was a pretty interesting, funky experience for sure, very different than big city.

Speaker 1:

Wow, how long have you been graduated now from Weber State?

Speaker 2:

I graduated from Weber State the beginning of 2021.

Speaker 1:

So it's been about three years, but we're excited to have you on the podcast today. Today is going to be a conversation just about the health care state of the industry, some big picture ideas. We want to go over and get your opinions and thoughts about what's going on. You mentioned that you saw like the rural side of healthcare. Can you dive into that a little bit? What does that mean?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so rural healthcare is something that probably people don't really think about too often unless you live in that kind of environment. But it would be living in like a super small town or a small population center but having the biggest population in that area. So, for example, the town I was in, it was in Goodland, kansas, and they have the only hospital around for about a hundred miles in any given direction. So really everyone and everyone that needed services would go to this little hospital. And rural services are kind of unique because they play a role of emergency room, urgent care, regular operating services like having surgeries, things like that on top of assisted living and skilled nursing services, things like that on top of assisted living and skilled nursing services. So they really have to be a jack of all trades and service everything.

Speaker 1:

What was their census like? Were they overcrowded, understaffed?

Speaker 2:

What was the environment, I would say definitely understaffed for sure, because it was really hard to find people that wanted to work there. We had the opportunity to talk to a couple of nurses and a couple of EMTs who worked at the hospital and in that area, and their biggest complaint was finding doctors. If they were lucky, they would have doctors fly in from Denver, which was about an hour flight away, and they would come in once a month, sometimes twice a month, and they would be there generally for like a day and a half, and so these specialists would do anything from scheduled surgeries to helping out on the urgent care side and seeing people that way. So there really was like only one doctor in town who who had to do everything, which was again of crazy right like this doctor is your er doctor, he's your pediatrician, he's your geriatric care, like everything.

Speaker 1:

And then occasionally you get help from the outside was he like the kind of doctor that would go house to house, kind of everybody knows who this doctor is. Everybody's taking care of everybody in the town. That's cool.

Speaker 2:

So like he worked all day at the clinic and then oftentimes we could see him, his name is Dr John so. Dr, John would just like go house to house and check up on certain patients that he needed to follow up with.

Speaker 1:

And this was in Kansas. Was this during your missionary service?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. So this was in Kansas. I did have the opportunity, right after I graduated from Weber, to interview for a position of an administrator of a rural clinic up in Montana. I could not convince my wife to take that leap with me and that it would be a good idea for us to go. Same kind of structure, same kind of thing going on there with them. They were lucky enough. They had two doctors and they had three nurses, which was really lucky, and they knew that. They were a little afraid, though, because one of the doctors and two of the nurses were getting ready to retire at that clinic.

Speaker 1:

Whoa Backtracking a little bit during your time in Kansas or maybe experiencing that rural healthcare system for the first time with Dr John, was there something that inspired you personally about that, that made you want to pursue a career in the healthcare industry?

Speaker 2:

Personally, I thought it was pretty crazy that he had to take care of not only an entire town but really like an entire portion of the state and service that little area. So I thought that was pretty commendable and healthcare in general I thought was really cool. When I got back from my mission I had the opportunity to work, for it was a skilled nursing center I worked with Jeremy Meldrum was his name. He's an administrator here in Utah and he's actually the one who really got me interested in being an administrator in like skilled nursing or assisted living. I was the transportation director there with him so I like drove people to and from their appointments and I thought that was awesome. Like I just got to talk to old people as I took them to and from the doctor and that was my day. That's really what got me interested in it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I have had a similar experience. I worked as a caregiver for about five months before I transferred over to the role that I'm in now a helperly and working with elderly really impacts you. It really opens your mind up to understanding people. You learn how to listen. You really just learn how to care for the individual, for the individual. Starting as a director of transportation, walk us through the other steps of your career up until your most recent role as an executive director. How did you grow? What roles did you have? Tell us a little bit about each one.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I was doing that down in Orem that was before I got married and then went up to Weber. So I did that for about a year and then transitioned up to Ogden and then at that time I was working for a clinic called Ogden Clinic, worked there for about a year and my wife was working at the hospital and she worked night shift and I wanted to go and experience the hospital scene and also work kind of a similar schedule. So I went and did like insurance and patient registration in the ER, actually at night, and that was pretty cool and the emergency room taught me a lot just about like the different patients that came in to healthcare.

Speaker 2:

Having worked in that transportation director role beforehand, one thing that I always took like a special interest in or noticed is whenever elderly people would come in and what brought them in to the emergency room. And a good portion of them were coming in from either skilled nursings or assisted livings. And then if they came from home, oftentimes I noticed the doctor having a conversation with the family saying, hey, we're going to admit them to the floor and really like it's our professional opinion that we don't have them go home. You're going to need to have them go somewhere else, because a lot of times they either had fallen and broken something or they had been alone for a number of days and were really dehydrated or had malnutrition. Just seeing that, I kind of thought about it more and was like I wonder how we can help this population. That kind of inspired me and took my direction that way.

Speaker 1:

Wow, you seem to be the type of person that's very observant and very, you know, meticulous when you try and understand someone. Was there a lesson that you took away from that ER experience that has kind of stuck with you.

Speaker 2:

I would say the thing that stuck with me the most is, unfortunately, healthcare in the United States, especially for elderly. It's not super great Like when we do send them to the ER, unless there's something like severely wrong, like a broken bone or something like that. We try and get them in and out so quickly and just surface level address. Oh okay, this person's dehydrated, we're going to give them, you know, some fluids. If there's room, we'll transfer them over to the medical wing and have them stay on the floor for a couple of days. We'll help their family kind of figure it out with social work. They'll take care of it from there. Or if it's the weekend and the floor is full and there isn't a lot of room, we're just going to get them back out as quickly as possible.

Speaker 1:

I didn't know that.

Speaker 2:

At least in my personal experience, that's what I noticed. I mean, that's not to say every ER is like that, it's just something kind of interesting I picked up on.

Speaker 1:

That's interesting. That stuck with you. So, from the ER and learning this experience seeing maybe elderly people not cared for in the right way did that help you when you pivoted into more senior living roles.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, that did, for sure.

Speaker 2:

The way I viewed it and looked at it is I wanted to try and help them as much as possible. When I became in a management position and we had to face that option of sending somebody to the hospital, it was something that I didn't take super lightly. I wanted to make sure that we tried to do everything we could before we sent them there and then, in sending them to the emergency room, I did my best, either educating the family before they went or even calling into the emergency room that they were going to and trying to give them a heads up and be like look, we're bringing this person in, this is what's going on with them. This is why we can't help them. We need you to take a closer look. Honestly, it was a 50-50 shot. Even then, when you're like educating families and trying to call ahead to the ER, sometimes they'd be like oh okay, thank you for that, we're going to do what we can. And then other times they go for a couple of hours and then get sent right back to you.

Speaker 1:

I find that, in the role that I have now, education seems to be a big hot button. It seems to be everybody's, I guess, go-to thing to talk about, whether it's educating the families, like you mentioned, or educating the individual. What did it take, other than experience, for you to have the understanding of the healthcare system that you do now? Was it part of your curriculum at school? What gave you, like that expertise to educate other people?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I would say definitely my education at Weber helped out a ton. It's a great program. They have great instructors there, brian Coddles, the head of the undergraduate program. He taught us all a lot from every aspect and did a great job, so truly appreciate that. I would say as well. Like experience is the best teacher. I had a really great mentor and did a great internship with him Chad Herrick is his name at Stonehenge up in Ogden Well, that's where he was working at the time and just not being afraid to ask questions Even after I left and wasn't doing my internship there.

Speaker 2:

I started working at the time and just not being afraid to ask questions Even after I left and wasn't doing my internship there. I started working at a place called Legacy House of Taylorsville, which is an assisted living, and I was an assistant administrator there. I would still call him with questions and, hey, like I have this resident. This is kind of the scenario. This is what I'm thinking. Do you think this is a good idea? Like what would you do? And so just not being afraid to like reach out to others who have more experience and ask them questions. It's a huge, huge thing you can do.

Speaker 1:

That's definitely big. Asking questions helps open the doors. I mean, if you want something, you got to ask for it. I really like how you mentioned your mentorship and I really for it. I really like how you mentioned your mentorship and I really liked how you had specific role models. Have you seen in your career still relying on those role models? Have you, like, picked up new ones? What's been your relationship to your role models?

Speaker 2:

I would say that I still talk to them. I've actually had the opportunity now after graduating, going back and speaking at the senior capstone class that Brian has to people that are getting ready to graduate themselves and talking to them about senior living and senior care. I still talk to Chad as well. After working at Legacy House of Taylorsville, I transitioned to an executive director position at Fairfield Village up in Layton. That was an amazing thing. I got to know Josh Lancaster's, his name, and he's another person that I look up to, another mentor that I have, and he was over that entire campus. That was pretty unique because we have assisted living, memory care, skilled nursing and then an independent living that were all a part of a big campus.

Speaker 1:

That was pretty cool. Let's dive into your experience at Legacy. Tell us about your first few weeks, how you got the job, and then we'll go into like the day-to-day. I would love to hear more about that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So Legacy is where I first started as an assistant administrator, and that was a pretty unique one. Got the position, I graduated, and then literally started that following Monday, graduated on a Friday, started that Monday, I lucked out.

Speaker 1:

Wow, that was cool, that's amazing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, my second day there, we had state come in and do a survey, so that was a little nerve wracking doing survey with them my second day and they're like, okay, we're here, to, you know, inspect the building and I'm like well, this is great, because I know nothing about it.

Speaker 1:

Let's do this.

Speaker 2:

So I got to go around with, like state inspectors, learned a lot in a short period of time from them. More of the day to day was like working hand in hand with the clinical team, trying to make sure all the residents are being taken care of, that everyone's happy. Working with dining services, making sure that people are getting to meals. If they aren't coming, that they're getting meals delivered to their room, scheduling kind of basic things. And then transitioning over to Fairfield is where I became an executive director. That one was a little more unique because it was its own little ecosystem right, because we had so many services at our disposal, had some really great clinicians there, amazing nursing team. They honestly are phenomenal. All three of the nurses are still there at Fairfields and I appreciate them very much. I learned a lot of clinical knowledge from the three of them. Randy Lynn, kara and Etta are their names. They're great people, great individuals.

Speaker 2:

Then, working hand in hand, her name's Kristen Porm. She ran the skilled nursing side of that facility, again not being afraid to reach out to people that have more experience than I do. So let's say it was a difficult family situation going on. There were multiple children who were arguing. You know what's best for mom, and I could go over and ask Kristen or talk to Josh and say, hey, this is what I'm seeing, this is what's going on. What would your recommendation be? Or how would you handle this situation? This is kind of what I'm thinking, but do you think that would work? And just being able to talk through scenarios is really great.

Speaker 1:

You seem like a lot of your experiences came from challenges that you overcame. I mean, starting your second day getting audited is pretty crazy. Yeah, that was different.

Speaker 2:

That, for sure, was different.

Speaker 1:

What would you say were some other challenges that you experienced as an executive director?

Speaker 2:

It was a little bit of the tail end of COVID still director there. It was a little bit of the tail end of COVID still so, dealing with regulation and rule updates and changes happening there on a daily, sometimes hourly basis again and then really just trying to get people to come out of that I guess the best way to say it is stupor People that were afraid to come and visit family members, trying to reinvigorate and invite them to come back it is okay for you to visit your grandma or grandpa or your mom or dad or your sister you need to come back and see them or trying to get big community activities going again. Just trying to get people back into a swing of things after COVID was definitely harder than I thought would be.

Speaker 1:

I never really thought about that. I mean, I've heard once before from a marketing director at Cove Point in Provo that a big problem that she wishes she could solve would be family relations between them and then the residents. Is that something you experienced as well, where it's like difficult sometimes difficult to get the family to do what's beneficial for the resident or their grandparents or yeah, I would. How would you, how would you overcome that? Did you have any success stories like, or did you have any, anything that went well in that regard? Because it seems to be a big, you know, industry problem no, I would.

Speaker 2:

I would say for sure, the last position that I was at at Grove Creek, we had success. I'm just going to call her Mrs Smith. We met with Mrs Smith family on multiple occasions. We had like two or three family meetings with them, just going over why we were so worried about her and how we could best help her. She was struggling a lot with some mental health things and really just trying to express to them that we, as a staff, the only reason that we're doing this is because we really cared about them.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we understand that that's your mom, that's your sister, that's your grandma, but we see her on a daily basis and we interact with her on a daily basis and we've grown to love and appreciate her as well. Obviously, that relationship is going to be different, but I think that's the best thing that you can do for families and individuals is show them that, as health care workers, the reason we're doing this it's not because our pay is awesome, it's not because we get tons of time off. It's because we love and appreciate the people we work with and we serve. So I think that's how I've that's really powerful sentiment.

Speaker 1:

I know that for me personally. Before I was in the senior care industry, I definitely believed in the stigma that you know assisted livings, independent livings, memory cares that those type of places were just there to take your money, or they're just there to bully your grandparents, or you never want to put them in a home because you've heard the horror stories. But as I've worked with individuals and then talking to individuals like yourself, I've learned quite the opposite is true, where the care is really evident and prevalent. Is that something that you noticed early on, maybe even at Weber, that that love for the seniors exists, or is that something that you had to learn for yourself?

Speaker 2:

I would say that that definitely is something that I picked up on from anyone that I talked in the senior living industry in particular is that, again, the reason that they were doing it is because they loved and appreciated the people that they were working with and that they were serving.

Speaker 2:

And then two just in healthcare in general. I have a kind of interesting opportunity. My wife's a nurse and she works in labor and delivery and same kind of thing. The reason she does that is because she loves working with people and she loves helping take care of moms and their new babies. My father-in-law he was a nurse anesthetist that's like an anesthesiologist. The reason he did that he loved working with people and taking care of them and he really wanted to take care of people in surgery and make sure that they had successful outcomes. I think that's kind of the stem for everybody right Is like they love the people they work with and work for.

Speaker 1:

What would you say to someone who maybe struggles with that? What would your advice to them be?

Speaker 2:

My advice to them would be find one individual that you can focus on and get to know really really well, and then you can build off of that experience. When I first started at Legacy of Taylorsville I had that. I had one lady in particular that I loved her. She was great, she was like a second grandma to me. I got to know her really really well. Unfortunately she did pass away from COVID, but that still was a great experience that I had with her and with her family and getting to know them. I've talked to her kids before and they're okay with me talking about this.

Speaker 2:

But kind of a unique story about her. Her name was Lucille, but I actually found out that that was not her given name. Her name was actually Lucia and she was Italian. And when her parents immigrated here to the US she was a little girl and she went to school. She was in like second grade and her second grade teacher didn't like Italians and changed her name to Lucille and said no, this is your name, this is what you're going to go by. Changed her name to Lucille and said no, this is your name, this is what you're going to go by, and so she went by Lucille for the rest of her life and didn't. Her own kids didn't even know this happened until I talked to them about it. They talked to their mom and they were kind of blown away. They were like holy cow, we've called you a different name your entire life. That was kind of crazy. I guess that's just a good example of what can happen when you truly get to know someone and care for them.

Speaker 1:

That's amazing, kind of a tragedy that her name was changed, but it's an amazing experience to be able to. That's actually like the coolest thing I've ever heard. That's so cool that you were able to connect with her at that level. How did that story come about? Did you do research?

Speaker 2:

Did she just tell you like we were just sitting there talking and I my wife and I we had recently adopted a baby girl and her name's Hazel, and they were. She was asking you know, why'd you pick that name? That that's really old fashioned. And I just was like you know, we really liked it, it sounded really good and I said you know why did your parents pick the name Lucille? And then she kind of looked at me for a second and she's like well, to be honest, that's not my name. I was like what? And she's like, yeah, my name's Lucia. I was like what. And she told me this story and I just I was so blown away the first time I heard it I was like I can't believe somebody did that. My initial gut reaction was like that would never happen nowadays.

Speaker 2:

But then I had to think back and I my initial gut reaction was like that would never happen nowadays. But then I had to think back and I was like, okay, this was like the 1920s, like end of the 1920s beginning of the 1930s.

Speaker 1:

Things were a little different back then. Did that kind of motivate you to learn more about others? Or is that just a special story for you and holds a place in your heart?

Speaker 2:

No, it actually did do that for me. It motivated me to learn as much as I could about not only my residence, but then I actually transferred that into my employees that I worked with. I found that to help with employee retention. Any employee that I work with, I want to learn one cool kind of personal fact about them. It doesn't have to be quite as deep as what I found out about Lucille, but just something that I can go back and talk to them about, because, at the end of the day, yeah, we're taking care of people we all have that in common but we're also individuals and we all have our personal things that make us unique in who we are.

Speaker 1:

I think that's a great thought. That's a really, really wonderful thought that I didn't think that connecting with people would relate to employee retention. Do you find that when your employees say like oh, I connected with Mr Smith, they stay for longer, they're more invested, they're more motivated? Is that been your experience?

Speaker 2:

100%. Yeah, I've seen employee retention cut down significantly to where, in some cases cases we were at over 100% turnover, instilling that kind of care and core values and I'm trying to think of the words for it just the culture that you want to build in a workplace we saw employee retention go through the roof. Our turnover went from about a little over a hundred percent cut down to about 15% in the course of about two and a half three months.

Speaker 1:

So it's a significant difference. Wow, that's huge man. That's really quite an achievement. That kind of inspires me. I want to connect with someone today.

Speaker 2:

That can be your talent right, Like find somebody to talk to and make a personal connection with.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, if you can get a really low turnover rate just from connecting, I wonder what else it affects in the industry. I guess that leads me to one of the last few questions we have here is if you had a magic wand and you could change one thing about the senior care space other than issues we've talked about like, what would that be?

Speaker 2:

space other than issues we've talked about, like what would that be? I would just say, like the negative stigma that goes with it and how people view it right. Kind of like you were saying earlier, assisted livings or skilled nursings are just there to take your money. Don't put your parent or loved one in a home. It's a terrible thing. It's not really. Yeah, there are some places that are struggling and they aren't doing as great as they could, but no place is truly terrible and truly just there for money.

Speaker 2:

The people that are there in those environments, they're there working because they love working with the elderly and doing what they can to take care of them. That would be my wish. If I had a magic wand, I would like to take that stigma away to find a magic wand.

Speaker 1:

would like take that signal away. That's a good thing. I have definitely benefited from seniors. They love just as hard as anybody else, and being able to be with them and to care for them and provide a service for them, especially on a one-on-one basis, teaches you a lot more about life and it teaches you a lot more about yourself than anything else could. It really feels amazing. Is there something that you wish we went over or a question that you wish I had asked you?

Speaker 2:

You know what you did a phenomenal job. I really like what you all do at Helperly and specifically the podcast. It's really cool. I say keep doing it, keep talking to people, keep the conversation out there.

Speaker 1:

I love it. It was a pleasure to be with you. Well, thank you, riley. I'm going to close out here. It was a pleasure to talk to you everybody. Thanks for tuning in. Riley Moore, utah Weber State Executive Director. Good man.