Benchmark Senior Living
A New England-based company that manages dozens of senior living communities and an Alabama long-term care facility are profiled in the latest case studies in PHI’s The Business of Caregiving series.
Benchmark Senior Living, headquartered in Wellesley, Massachusetts, provides its workers with plentiful career advancement opportunities, designed to maintain a high retention rate.
Benchmark also operates a unique “Culture Compensation” program, in which employees are monetarily rewarded for demonstrating values consistent with the Benchmark mission of providing quality care for residents.
The Birmingham-based St. Martin’s in the Pines, meanwhile, adopted The Green House model to better care for its nursing home residents.
St. Martin's in the Pines
The Green House model calls for a wholesale physical and philosophical reorganization of traditional nursing home-based care.
Under the Green House model, for example, direct-care workers — known as “Shahbazim” — provide a range of services, including personal care, meal planning, and laundry service for residents.
In turn, Shahbazim are empowered by being given additional responsibilities, including self-scheduling each day with their resident, and participating in self-managed work teams to manage the facility.
All Shahbazim are required to undergo a 120-hour training before working in a Green House facility.
Both Benchmark and St. Martin’s were selected to be subjects of PHI case studies because they exemplify PHI’s “quality care through quality jobs” approach to eldercare/disability services.
Four other Business of Caregiving case studies are available at the PHI Training & Organizational Development Services website.
The case studies, as well as a series of 20 best practice profiles, were made possible with support from the Hitachi Foundation.
– by Matthew Ozga
