A Day of CompassionCare
By Mark Fogarty
5 min read
Schuett Companies Matches Homes and Home Aid
With CompassionCare, resident services are very much hands-on. You might see registered nurse Adam Sebek, for example, dash out of Park View Terrace Apartments to pick up an urgent prescription for one of the residents at the 120-unit property himself. The pharmacy isn’t far. It is in a mall right across the street from the Moorhead, MN affordable seniors/disabled development.
Sebek describes the personalized pharmacy run as, “Super slick and quick,” an approving phrase he uses several times when talking about a typical day at Park View Terrace, a Schuett Companies property served by CompassionCare, the organization’s homecare unit.
The personal run is unusual. The pharmacy usually delivers meds itself, customized for each of CompassionCare’s clients at Park View. Medications are a big part of the agency’s service and close attention is paid to them even before Sebek’s day starts at 8:00 am.
Counting Out the Meds
That’s because the morning shift starts at 7:00 am, with the day shift going over service schedules that often include counting and administering meds. The meds are overseen by nurses (there is a licensed practical nurse,
Katie Futrelle, in addition to Sebek, who is a registered nurse) and are generally color-coded and kept in two-week supplies in a locked cabinet in the client’s apartment. The service schedules, one for each client, also indicate what other services the client should be getting that day, like housekeeping or assistance with bathing.
A second shift commences at 3:00 pm, and an overnight at around 11:00 pm or so. The overnight shift, when clients are presumably sleeping, also works on other services, like laundry or cleaning common areas.
Altogether, about 20 to 30 clients are seen in an average day, Sebek says, by a staff that includes an administrative supervisor, the RN and LPN, two home aides in the morning shift, two in the afternoon and one overnight. Nurses are on call 24 hours a day.
“We have a good relationship with the clients here,” Sebek says. “The idea is to keep them in their home environment rather than going to a nursing home or memory care.”
While most of the interactions are in the residents’ apartments, there are a few community activities, he says. They include a coffee and snack hour on Wednesdays, and Movie Day on Friday in the community center, which can hold up to 50 people.
CompassionCare is Flourishing
CompassionCare began in 2011, when Schuett Companies owner Tom Schuett directed that home care be provided to clients who wanted it, according to Deann Krupich, director of nursing. She describes it as a small agency, with fewer than 50 employees. CompassionCare is currently offered in six Schuett properties in Minnesota, with a seventh on tap that was scheduled to open last month.
Besides Park View Terrace Apartments they are Mill Pond View in Pelican Rapids, MN; Park Manor Estates in Detroit Lakes, MN; Pine Ridge Apartments in Grand Rapids, MN; River Bend Apartments in Fergus Falls, MN; and Riverview Manor in Floodwood, MN.
Park View Terrace, which was the first Schuett property to utilize CompassionCare, is mostly one-bedroom units, with a smattering of two-bedroom and disabled apartments. The town of Moorhead, on the western edge of the state, is located in farming country, which has a lot of soybean and sugar beet agriculture.
The new property, which has the poetic name of Flourish Senior Living and is located in Golden Valley, MN, is Schuett/CompassionCare’s first fair market value property, says Krupich (the others are Department of Housing and Urban Development properties).
CompassionCare services include housekeeping, personal laundry and linens, meal preparation, meal reminders, medicine administration, medicine reminders, well checks, incontinence care, grooming, hygiene assistance, bathing assistance, help with dressing, shopping, transportation, skin care, walking, wheeling and incidental nursing.
Service Around the Clock
Some of the projects, like Park View Terrace, have 24-hour service, and others have 12-hour care. Not all clients receive it. Many are paid for by county-administered Medicaid waivers, while others are private-pay.
Schuett Companies dates back to the 1970s. It was founded by John E. Schuett, an affordable housing specialist who syndicated and invested in more than 3,000 multifamily units. Based in Golden Valley, MN, it currently manages 18 properties, mostly in Minnesota, with 1,300 total multifamily units. It espouses a positive philosophy found in a book called How Full Is Your Bucket?
Krupich says plans for expansion include a move into North Dakota and certification by Medicare, which she says would allow for skilled nursing and “would be very good for our residents for continuity of care.”
Sebek concurs that being certified by Medicare would allow for expanded services, such as post-hospital stay care and wound care.
His own 8:00 am to 4:00 pm shift (he lives in Moorhead, a small city of 38,000 across the Red River from Fargo, ND, and commutes five miles to work) is occupied by oversight of staff, contacting doctors or case managers, dealing with the county since they use a county waiver program and doing assessments. He estimates he deals with five or six doctors a day.
In Case of Emergency
Sebek is also involved in medical activities, beyond his occasional pharmacy dash. He is called in if there is a medical emergency, and must decide whether Compassion-Care can deal with the problem itself, or if 911 should be called.
Other than emergencies, “It’s pretty easygoing,” he says. “It’s a very positive environment.”
Sebek notes, “We do monthly wellness assessments, diabetes checks, blood pressure checks and heart health checks” for their clients.
Do CompassionCare staff become attached to the residents?
“To a point,” Sebek says. “We maintain a professional relationship, but you definitely have an attachment at some level. When you do lose a client, it’s painful.”
Story Contacts:
Adam Sebek, RN
CompassionCare, Pine Ridge Terrace Apartments
218-477-1008
Deann Krupich
Director of Nursing, CompassionCare
218-477-1008
