By Steve Moran

At Foresight, we have written a lot about Brookdale, not in an effort to tear them down — though I am sure some have interpreted it that way — but because we want Brookdale to be amazingly successful for shareholders, residents, team members, and the local marketplace community.

Recently, several readers sent me a recent McKnight’s article, “Brookdale reaches tentative staffing lawsuit settlement, faces renewed scrutiny in proxy war,” wondering what I thought.

With Respect to Brookdale …

They are kind of a mess right now, struggling more than other organizations. They need a new leader, someone with deep senior living experience … not quite right … someone with deep senior living success.

Staffing Algorithms 

I struggle a lot with how the lawsuit blamed an “algorithm” for understaffing (this assumes understaffing did occur, and I am not weighing in on that question).

Ultimately, every single senior living company uses an algorithm to determine staffing levels, since an algorithm is simply a formula that is used over and over again for a specific purpose.

More importantly, every algorithm or formula was written by a human (or group of humans) who made some decisions about what appropriate staffing levels should be.

The Broader, Better Discussion

The broader, better discussion should be about what constitutes appropriate staffing. As I started thinking about this question, I began to wonder what senior living would be like if, when it comes to staffing, we were to underpromise and overdeliver.

Right now, most companies use some kind of formula to determine the exact right staffing for each of their communities based on the number of residents and the care needs of those residents. Once they have that number for each shift, the goal is to hit the right number without going over.

It makes perfect sense because people are the most expensive part of any senior living operation.

Many companies, maybe even most, do build in some kind of “just in case” margin.

The Problem Is …

But setting minimum staffing standards and scheduling to that standard creates real problems and real risks:

  1. What happens if something goes really wrong? A resident falls, and 3 others have significant incontinence accidents on the same shift?
  2. What happens if someone calls off at the last minute?
  3. It leads to temp staff and/or working short-handed, both of which create legal liabilities and hurt the resident experience.

The Opportunity

I then got to contemplating what it would be like if a senior living community, a senior living organization, made a deliberate decision to overstaff, to overdeliver. One extra person per shift. They would not be simply sitting around. There are always productive things to be done. Hanging out with residents, helping with resident care, helping in the dining room, the list is endless.

Maybe some of you are doing this, and I would love to hear about it.