Shady Oaks Assisted Living 2019 Improvements

Dear Shady Oaks Community,

This letter provides an update on our home improvements since our prior mid-2018 update letter.  We also wish to offer our heartfelt remembrance for residents who passed away or left our home.

We feel especially proud of these twelve accomplishments for resident nursing and wellness:

1.  We welcomed our new Supervising RN, Nicole Geurrette, who has 35+ years experience.
2.  We thanked our 21-year Supervising RN, Debbie Jawin-Sheak, who retired and is part-time.
3.  We tripled our Licensed Practical Nurse hours for scheduled medications and other services.
4.  We implemented on-call LPN staffing for as-needed off-hour medications and nursing visits.
5.  We partnered with Dr. Miller’s Advanced Practice RN, Kaitlyn Ballaro, who visits weekly.
6.  We began sending up-to-date copies of Physician Orders to families at least every 120 days.
7.  We boosted our CNA starting pay & continued providing living wage raises for all our staff.
8.  We added skills, math, and memory tests for CNA interviews and reviewed 2,000+ resumes.
9.  We hosted a Big Picnic, Halloween Party, Mother’s Day Tea, & Father’s Day Steak Tasting.
10.  We paid guests/entertainers for 150+ events, plus hosted 200+ in-home/volunteer activities.
11.  We began using iron-on name labels and greatly improved our ability to identify laundry.
12.  We helped 11 residents begin the CT Pilot Pay Program and receive up to $2,100 monthly.

We also feel proud to highlight these twelve home improvements for our residents:

1.  We renovated eight resident rooms to improve bathrooms, closets, flooring, and pull lights.
2.  We replaced hand crank hospital beds w/full electric beds & began using silent bed alarms.
3.  We bought 11 Serta power lift recliners for both our upstairs and downstairs living rooms.
4.  We added floor space and table seating for both our upstairs and downstairs dining rooms.
5.  We installed 12 colorful large paintings for both our upstairs and downstairs dining rooms.
6.  We counted resident votes for different Corelle plates & bought the winner for our home.
7.  We installed a cell phone amplifier and new countertop in our downstairs common area.
8.  We installed two magnetic safety locks to increase upstairs resident stairway door safety.
9.  We installed white paddle fans with candelabra lights in almost all upstairs resident rooms.
10.  We renovated our upstairs living room bathrooms & we will soon enlarge the resident one.
11.  We hired and scheduled a paving company to expand, level, and repave our parking lot.
12.  We hired and scheduled solar panel installations that will reduce our electricity use by 1/3.

Despite our gains, we had heart-breaking losses and moves.  We offer our condolences for the passings of Beverly Bobroske, Katherine Comstock, Edward Czlapinski, Constance Daigle, Gladys Lee, Cecil Maloney, Thelma Mikelskas, Richard Pitkin, Shirley Powell, Harold Simon, Edith Valentine, Eleanor Wasilewski, Stanley Winiarski, and Joan Wynne.  We also remember residents who moved: Carol Bauer, Ola Coe, and Judith Farmer.  We feel grateful we cared for all our former residents.  We tried our best.  We hope we did well.  And for all our current residents, we pledge to keep working hard to provide strong nursing in a cozy and loyal home.

Very Respectfully,
Tyson Francis Belanger