News

Your staff has been working extremely hard this year in unprecedented conditions. Want to do something special for them? We have just the thing – our annual Stars Among Us Awards honor and celebrate caregivers, leaders and rising stars in our settings throughout Minnesota.

This year’s “100 Most Influential Health Care Leaders” list published by Minnesota Physician, a medical business journal, includes three prominent leaders at LeadingAge Minnesota: Jerry Carley, President and CEO; Benedictine; Dr. Rahul Koranne, President and CEO, Minnesota Hospital Association; and Gayle Kvenvold, President and CEO, LeadingAge Minnesota

We are excited to announce that Luke Jenkins has joined our team as the Director of Membership. Luke comes to LeadingAge Minnesota with almost 10 years of experience in the senior care field, most recently serving as Director of Community Relations and then Corporate Marketing & Sales Consultant with Ebenezer.

Vista Prairie Communities (VPC), a nonprofit provider of assisted living, independent living, memory care and care suites in Minnesota, Iowa and Ohio, has announced the appointment of

Strategies for Diffusing Challenging Situations, a webinar on Aug. 14, will explore practical strategies designed to help staff diffuse the highly and emotionally charged situations so that difficult conversations about what can be done occur and enable the parties to move forward together.  

As we develop new tools and resources to help you combat COVID-19 and comply with changing state and federal guidance, we remind you to visit our COVID-19 web page where you will find a wide variety of resources. 

The LeadingAge Minnesota Foundation (LAMF) last week awarded $660,000 in COVID-19 grants to fund staff support and virtual adult day services. 

In this week’s Resource Round-Up, we feature three new resources released last week: Essential Caregivers, Visitation Guidance Decision-Making Grid, and Adult Day Re-Opening 

In this week’s COVID-19 Resource Round-Up, we feature new tools and resources to help you understand, design and implement the new Essential Caregiver designation in your community. 

As we continue to push for a clear, cogent testing strategy and reimbursement process from the State of Minnesota, we know you are faced with many decisions when it comes testing residents and staff. Our new COVID-19 “Whole House” Testing Decision Guide is a workflow process designed to help you consider what approach is best for your setting. It includes links to key resources to guide your decision and implement your plan. Resources include:

In this week’s COVID-19 Resource Round-Up, we feature new tools that will help nursing homes enhance infection control, guide providers in testing, and ideas and guidance on how to engage residents during a time of social distancing and visitor restrictions.   

The Stars Among Us Awards nominations are open, and we want to hear all about your stars. More than ever, this is a year to recognize your dedicated staff team for their tireless commitment to serving older adults. In addition to our most popular awards, we are excited to introduce a new award this year – the Rising Star Award. 

In this week’s COVID-19 Resource Round-Up, we share tools to help you plan and communicate outdoor visits, navigating the grief and trauma that accompany a global pandemic and new testing resources, including a vendor list and a webinar featured the experiences and perspectives of our LeadingAge MN members. 

Brittney Thoreson, Vice President of Housing at Knute Nelson in Alexandria, has been a named to the inaugural cohort for LEAD, the Leadership Advancement & Development Program for the senior living field sponsored by Argentum. She is one of 27 professionals selected for this leadership excellence program.  

Shelley Kendrick, President and CEO of Ecumen, joins select thought leaders and prominent industry associations from across North America on the International Council on Active Aging's (ICAA) COVID-19 Senior Living Task Force.  

If we know one thing to be true during this global pandemic, the media and public will continue to focus on the number of positive COVID-19 cases and deaths related to the virus in long-term care settings. The best way to counter inaccurate media stories and public perception is with consistent transparency of your COVID-19 responsem, including the number of people who have been afflicted by the virus or died from it in your setting.  

Testing continues to be a focus of our resource development over the past week, and we have also developed resources to help you facilitate discussions that may involve in advanced care planning, grief and bereavement. 

We've extended application deadlines for both LeadingAge Minnesota Foundation grant programs to allow for more members to participate during this chaotic and stressful time. We realize everyone is juggling many priorities and there aren’t enough hours in the day. 

Applications for grants to support staff (COVID-19 Courage Funds) and to fund virtual services for Adult Day Services (COVID-19 Adult Day Services Virtual Visits & Support) are being accepted from rural LeadingAge Minnesota members. The application deadline is June 4 at 5 p.m. 

This week’s COVID-19 Resource Round-Up features a new training video on specimen collection, an updated FAQ on testing and a link to the new process MDH is using for COVID-19 case management.