Valley VNA Senior Care - Becky Reichelt

Rick Sense and Terry Pinch get the opportunity to learn more about options for senior care at a time when society is aging and these services are needed more than ever.  Listen in and learn more about an organization that has been serving the community for 118 years.

Transcript

Zach Morris: SCORE Northeast Wisconsin and WHBY are pleased to bring you BizTalk, a chance for you to hear from entrepreneurs and professionals as they share their experiences. From starting to sustaining growth, learn the skills needed for your business to be successful. If you miss anything, you can catch the BizTalk podcast at score.org/NortheastWisconsin. And now, from the Myron Construction Studio, it's BizTalk on WHBY.

Terry Pinch: Good morning. I hope you're having a great Saturday morning. Welcome to BizTalk with SCORE. My name is Terry Pinch, and I'm one of the co-hosts this week, and joining me is Rick Sense as co-host. Rick, how are you doing?

Rick Sense: I'm doing well, Terry.

Terry Pinch: Excellent. This week, our guest is Becky Reichelt from the Valley VNA Senior Care. So, it's a great organization, a non-profit, 501(c)(3) in the Valley, that a lot of people should be learning about, and something to think about as you're looking at donations in the future. But, to get started, we want to introduce you to Becky. So, Becky, welcome to the show. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Becky Reichelt: Sure, I can. Thank you, Terry and Rick, for having us share our wonderful story about the Valley VNA, and as you indicated, I am with the Valley VNA, and I am the current president and CEO. I've been with the Valley VNA for about a year and a half, and knowing it being such an incredible organization, and the previous president and CEO had retired, I knew it was a natural fit for me to apply and to be a part of this team, and it was a great decision. I'm very proud to serve as the president and CEO at Valley VNA Senior Care.

Terry Pinch: And you've spent much of your career in senior care. Why does this career feel so right to you?

Becky Reichelt: Yeah, you're right. All of my professional career has been supporting seniors, their family members, educating the staff that work in assisted living, nursing home, aging services in general. I didn't really know that I wanted to go that direction until an experience I had while I was in college. I was a part of an amazing research project through UW-La Crosse. The concept was, how do we help family members to have a more meaningful visit with their loved one when they're going to visit their loved one who are living with dementia? So the research project focused on providing that person-connectedness and knowing what's important to the persons living with the disease. And how we can enhance that sense of pleasure and purpose and peace for the persons. And I fell in love with it during that process, during my master's degree and really understanding the value of personhood for persons living with dementia, but also for others that might live in assisted living or nursing home settings.

Terry Pinch: Okay, and we'll come back to that in a minute, but first, though, I'd like you to just tell our listeners what is Valley VNA Senior Care, and what's its mission?

Becky Reichelt: Yeah, you bet. Valley VNA Senior Care is located in Neenah, although we provide services throughout the Fox Valley area. VNA stands for Visiting Nurses Association, and that's really how our organization began 118 years ago, so in 1908, a group of women got together to form an organization which was then called the Neenah-Menasha Chapter of the Visiting Nurses Association. The first nurse was hired in 1908, and I share this incredible story because I think it's so powerful. Her name was Ida Heinke. She made 100 home visits within the first month of working, primarily on foot between Neenah and Menasha, and her focus was really on wellness visits, support to people who lived in that community, and she really has set that foundation for us to continue to provide that great care and support to people that we serve.

Terry Pinch: Okay, so let's talk a little bit about what services are offered, and how is that changing as you look at the aging population?

Becky Reichelt: Yeah, that's a good question, and we're always evolving. Being established in the community for so long, we've recognized that we have to adjust and adapt to what seniors now need. So, we know that not everybody wants to leave their home, and following suit to that initial service that was provided, the Visiting Nurses Association, we continue to provide in-home care. We don't have skilled nursing care, but we have companionship and supportive care, where we have a nurse do an evaluation to determine what somebody needs to live in their own home, and then we have personal care assistants that go into a person's home and provide that support—such as preparing breakfast, laundry services, or helping them with personal care needs. A lot of times it's the companionship to reduce that social isolation. But we also have known that not everybody can live at home. So in about 1998 is when our assisted living was built. We have 61 assisted living rooms, and we also have 32 independent senior apartments. So we recognize that we also need to provide that if somebody needs a more structured, safe environment.

Terry Pinch: Okay. When you look at the services offered by Valley VNA, how do you work with other nonprofits in the area to make sure you're covering the services seniors need?

Becky Reichelt: Yeah, we certainly know that we can't do it alone. Collaboration in senior care and senior living is so important. We feel very fortunate to be able to collaborate with, as an example, the Neenah Public Library, where we have library staff come in and do story time for all ages. We also collaborate with numerous other services so that we can enhance that quality of life. Recently, we've been focusing on another great need, which is respite. We've gotten many collaborators within the Neenah-Menasha community to get together for us to figure out how we can provide that respite support for the caregivers of those who are caring for loved ones that still live in their own homes.

Terry Pinch: So, as you add respite care, how do you go about, as an organization, determining what services need to be added, and then actually adding them?

Becky Reichelt: We look to ensure that it fits into our mission, which is to provide quality choices for senior living. If it fills an unmet need in the community—we don't want to duplicate services that are already out there, but if it fills a niche—that's one of those areas that we look at. And that's how we expanded our respite program, from caregiver support groups to other referral sources like social workers who have shared that there's such a need for that.

Terry Pinch: Alright. How are you funded? How does the VNA get its money?

Becky Reichelt: In a variety of ways. We are a non-profit organization. Obviously, we have fees for services—people who live here pay their monthly support service, and there are fees for our in-home care services—but we also are very grateful for the donors that extend their support to us for new initiatives and development. We also write grants and receive some local funding.

Terry Pinch: As you look at the variety of services offered, it obviously comes with the need for staffing. How many employees do you have right now?

Becky Reichelt: We currently have about 160 staff who work with us. We try to be very flexible based on what the needs are. Many of our staff work on a "float pool" basis, so we're very flexible to work with staff that might be going to school, or parents who can't work certain hours. It works for us so that the staff are satisfied with those hours, and obviously then meeting the needs of our residents and the clients that we serve.

Terry Pinch: Before the show, we talked about staffing. Can you talk a little bit about what you've seen in terms of becoming more difficult to find and retain employees since before the pandemic?

Becky Reichelt: There was always a workforce shortage in healthcare, but we recognize, nationwide, the impact that the pandemic had on the well-being of staff. There was such a burnout rate, and just the emotional toll it took on caring for residents when they couldn't have that natural connection with their family members when visitation was restricted. I recently heard that about 30% of the workforce was lost in healthcare after the pandemic, and we've just not caught up. We've been focusing on creative ways to personally train new caregivers to enter the field. We created our own caregiver training program, called our "Foundations of Care," where we interview people who have the passion and the desire, even if they haven't had the experience or the skills yet, and we spend significant time training them on the culture we create here and the skills needed to help somebody—the skills to help somebody eat, get dressed, or bathe. We found that to be very successful in gaining that confidence through that caregiver training program.

Terry Pinch: Okay, I think we're going to take our first break. You're listening to BizTalk with SCORE on WHBY, and we'll be right back after these messages.

Rick Sense: Welcome back to BizTalk with SCORE on WHBY. I'm Rick Sense, along with Terry Pinch this week, and we are having a very interesting discussion with Becky Reichelt, but we'll get right back to that in a little bit here. First, I'd just like to take a moment to talk to you about SCORE Northeast Wisconsin. SCORE Northeast Wisconsin serves a 29-county area in Northeast and North Central Wisconsin. We have more than 50 volunteers, and each is an expert in their field, offering entrepreneurs no-cost and confidential mentoring. Those areas of expertise include IT, social media, marketing, cash flow, accounting, strategic planning, workflow, HR, retail best practices, and many, many others. In order to register for a no-cost, confidential mentoring session, or to learn more about SCORE Northeast Wisconsin, please visit our website at score.org/NortheastWisconsin. You can learn more about how the SCORE chapter can assist you with starting or growing your business, and you can complete an application for a mentoring session. Simply complete the online form and submit it to SCORE. Within a few days, a SCORE mentor will be contacting you to set up a meeting. To support small business people, SCORE Northeast Wisconsin is always looking for new mentors. If you have experience that you would like to share with others, we'd love to talk to you. We welcome volunteers with experience in all aspects of business. Go to score.org/NortheastWisconsin, click on the volunteer button, and fill out the short application. And finally, this reminder about the BizTalk with SCORE podcast. The BizTalk with SCORE podcast brings you the same real-world information and insights from experienced entrepreneurs and business leaders, just like BizTalk with SCORE on WHBY. However, the BizTalk with SCORE podcast is available when you are, so listen and subscribe today. Available on most podcatchers and podcast apps. Thanks again for joining us this morning on BizTalk, and now back to our guest, Becky Reichelt, President and CEO of Valley VNA Senior Care. Becky, I just have to ask, how important are volunteers to the Valley VNA, and how do they complement your work?

Becky Reichelt: We really couldn't do much of the work that we do without our dedicated volunteers. We have a very amazing group of volunteers that visit on a regular basis in our assisted living communities. Their purpose is to provide connection, social engagement, a sense of purpose, and a sense of pleasure. We have volunteers that provide spiritual connections to our residents, volunteers that do baking activities, and we have a program called "Cycling Without Age," where we have an incredible bike—we order them from Denmark—where residents sit in a bucket, and we have a volunteer pilot that drives the battery-operated bike through the Neenah community. Those are all opportunities for volunteers to bring their skills and talents. We have volunteers that play cards, games, and do puzzles.

Rick Sense: Any musicians that come in?

Becky Reichelt: We do, yes. Typically, about twice a month, we have special musical groups or entertainers that come in to play some of those favorite tunes of our residents.

Rick Sense: So, besides the staffing that we talked about in the first segment, what other opportunities do you have administratively at Valley VNA?

Becky Reichelt: The most number of staff we have are the direct caregivers, but certainly we look at other aspects our residents and clients need. We have a team that focuses on life enrichment, housekeeping, maintenance, and our kitchen staff. But we also have an administrative team that is behind the scenes ensuring our staff are getting paid, processing bills, and strategically looking at all operations. We have a team of operators that focus on regulatory compliance, following policies and procedures, and training new staff.

Rick Sense: Now, you've been there a little over a year and a half. What's the one thing you didn't anticipate when you started that kind of snuck up on you?

Becky Reichelt: I had known about the Valley VNA and the great reputation, but the piece that people still tell us is that we're the "best-kept secret" in Neenah. We're located in a beautiful neighborhood, so people might not even know that we're here. We don't want to be the best-kept secret; we want to ensure that everybody is aware of the opportunities and services that we provide.

Terry Pinch: Welcome back to BizTalk with SCORE. This week, we're talking to Becky Reichelt from the Valley VNA Senior Care, and before we get back to Becky, I do want to give you a quick update on some SCORE news. If you go to our website, you'll find it's been updated. Our address is now score.org/wi/Northeast-Wisconsin. For our webinars and seminars, you will see a "Learning" tab now—that's replaced "Workshops and Events"—and that will take you to the whole series of paid or free learning opportunities.

Terry Pinch: Becky, we want to talk a little more in-depth about in-home care. Walk our listeners through what that really is and what services are offered.

Becky Reichelt: It starts with someone giving us a call. Our "Options and Solutions" program is often where people start to learn about what resources are available. If somebody is interested in in-home care, one of our RNs will schedule a visit with the potential client and their family to talk through exactly what they're looking for. Again, we don't provide skilled nursing or therapy; our support is focused on how we can help people stay at home as long as possible. We assess the need for personal cares, light housekeeping, meal preparation, transportation, or grocery shopping. We customize the hours and frequency based on that assessment. We also try very hard to have the same in-home care caregiver provide the service, because often there is resistance to having a stranger come into the home. We create a "plan of care" that is updated regularly, because we know people change through the aging process.

Terry Pinch: How important is the actual conversational side of somebody just being in the home?

Becky Reichelt: That is really the key to the success of the situation. Family members often say, "We know Mom needs more care, but we don't know how to have that conversation." Our staff will start by asking, "How do you feel things are going in your home? Do you feel that you might need some extra help?" It's not blaming the person; it's looking at how we can enhance their quality of life.

Terry Pinch: How does in-home care complement hospice care?

Becky Reichelt: Hospice is not something we provide, but we collaborate with many hospice providers in the Fox Valley area. Hospice doesn't provide 24-hour care; they have a team—nursing, chaplain, volunteer, and bereavement support—but they aren't there continually. So hospice agencies will often collaborate with in-home care agencies like us to supplement that support.

Terry Pinch: Let's move on to assisted and independent living. How do you help families make that decision?

Becky Reichelt: Again, it's through conversation. Sometimes people think the only option is a nursing home. We educate them on how independent senior housing with supplemental services might be what they need. If they live in our independent apartments and need additional care, we can add "Independent Plus" services, or they can transition to our assisted living. When people move into our setting, we want them to be a part of the process, even if they have dementia. We invite them to join us for lunch just to experience it. Many people in this era have a stigma of an institution where they think they'll be directed on everything to do, but we embrace a culture called "person-directed life," where we want residents to make those decisions.

Terry Pinch: Can you talk about life enrichment programs?

Becky Reichelt: That is key, especially when you think about the feeling of loss of independence. If they can't drive or go to their church or the "Y" like they used to, we want to bring those things to them here. We have calendars of programming based on their abilities, focused on physical exercise, social connectedness, past leisure interests, and spiritual connection. Exercise is just as important as the fun stuff—we do Wii bowling and balloon volleyball.

Terry Pinch: How do you work through transitions from independent living to assisted living?

Becky Reichelt: We incorporate engagements where everybody is connected together. We don't segregate the activity programs; we want it to be a community. If someone transitions, they often ask, "Can I still have lunch with my friend from the independent side?" and we encourage that. There is often fear—fear of growing older and of the changes happening—so we provide emotional support. We frequently hear after the move, "I probably should have done this sooner."

Terry Pinch: Going back to your work at UW-La Crosse regarding memory care, what did you learn about how to communicate with people suffering from Alzheimer's?

Becky Reichelt: The value of knowing the person living with the disease is key. It's not just our words; it's our actions and attitudes. We always say "the person living with dementia," not "the demented person." We want to inspire "purposeful, pleasurable, and peaceful living." If a resident was a farmer, I'm going to engage them in farming stories. If they talk about needing to go check their cattle, I'm not going to tell them they aren't a farmer anymore; I'm going to validate those feelings. The long-term memories are still there, and they still identify as who they are.

Terry Pinch: Finally, as the baby boomers head into retirement, is that creating demand that's going to be harder to meet?

Becky Reichelt: I think we're very fortunate in the Fox Valley to have such a variety of services. We are all thinking about the type of services needed—perhaps shifting the dining experience or the life enrichment programs. It will be more about opportunities to engage in the community than just providing things on our campus.

Terry Pinch: Excellent. We are going to take our final break. You're listening to BizTalk with SCORE on WHBY.

Rick Sense: Welcome back to BizTalk with SCORE on WHBY. I'm Rick Sense, and with Terry Pinch this week, we've been talking with Becky Reichelt, President and CEO of Valley VNA Senior Care. And before we get back to our conversation, I just want to take a moment to thank our sponsors: Haling & Associates, Johnson Financial Group, The Business News, Community First Credit Union, New North, Baird, and the David L. and Rita E. Nelson Fund within the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region. Becky, if somebody wants to learn more or would like to donate, where would you direct them?

Becky Reichelt: Start at our website, valleyvna.org. It includes information about all of our programs and services, how to apply for a paid position, how to inquire about volunteer opportunities, and suggestions for making financial donations. Or, feel free to call our main number at 920-727-5555.

Terry Pinch: Becky, what does the future hold for the Valley VNA?

Becky Reichelt: We're constantly looking at services that will enhance people's ability to stay at home. Community-based programs are an area of opportunity for us. With the desire for people to stay home as long as possible, we are enhancing our in-home care, Meals on Wheels, and our foot care service program. Our respite service, which we just started in February, is a great need. We also recognize our need to be a community resource—providing collaboration for education, training, and support groups for caregivers.

Terry Pinch: Becky, thanks for being on the show. This is a very important topic. Both Rick and I have experienced it, and know many others who have. Thank you for all you do.

Becky Reichelt: Thank you for inviting us; we certainly appreciate it.

Terry Pinch: And for listeners, you can find prior episodes at BizTalk with SCORE on any of your various podcatchers. Have a great weekend, and we'll talk to you next week.