Returning Senior Living Residents Content With Accommodations

Just as more senior citizens are returning to senior living communities following the mass exodus that the Coronavirus prompted in the Spring, those residents and their families generally are expressing satisfaction with assisted living/memory care facilities. 

In the J.D. Power 2020 US Senior Living Satisfaction Study, which was released Wednesday, families of assisted living/memory care community residents ranked facilities as an 8.24 out of 10 for their overall response to COVID-19. The most typical measures undertaken at such facilities to try and combat the virus were an increased focus on cleanliness, change in procedures to promote social distancing and offering advice/guidance on how to deal with the pandemic.

Overall, Brookdale Senior Living and Senior Lifestyle tied for the highest ranking in family member/decision-maker satisfaction with assisted living and memory care providers, each with a score of 843 out of 1,000.

When residents had a chance to rate facility owners, Life Care Services came in highest in independent living resident overall satisfaction for the second consecutive year, scoring 855. Five Star Senior Living ranked second, at 778, while Brookdale Senior Living, at 764, came in third.

The survey also revealed ways for senior living property owners, operators and investors to improve their standing. Residents of such communities indicated that staff interactions impact satisfaction yet only 44% of independent living facility residents said staff members ask about their satisfaction.

When it comes to the families of assisted living/memory care community residents, affording easy access to the executive director or general manager of the facility is a key way to improve satisfaction. Almost half of family members surveyed, 48%, said such professionals are difficult to reach. 

Additionally, satisfaction among families gets a boost when staff members indicate that they care for the residents, according to J.D. Power. As evidence of that, the firm said, when the staff makes sure that the resident feels included in the community, satisfaction soars by 142 points, and when family members believe that the staff understands their loved one’s medical history, overall satisfaction rises by 153 points.

“This year, the nation’s major senior living providers have continued to focus on the resident experience, while also addressing pandemic-related health and safety concerns,” said Andrea Stokes, hospitality intelligence lead at J.D. Power. “For independent living residents, factors such as activities, dining, staff and cost are of similar importance. For family members of assisted living/memory care residents, cost is twice as important as dining or activities.”

Senior living operators striving to recover from Coronavirus related losses would be best served by taking a holistic approach, Aaron Becker, senior managing director, head of seniors housing & healthcare production, Lancaster Pollard, a division of ORIX Real Estate Capital, told GlobeSt.com.

 “Those operators who truly understand the ‘care’ aspect of the seniors housing and care industry will be best positioned to recover. The pandemic has reinforced the notion that the seniors housing industry is not an expansion of housing but truly a healthcare industry,” he said. 

The experienced operators who understand healthcare will most likely fare better than the newer entrants who see it as an offshoot of multifamily, Becker added. These new entrants “loved the demographics, but they were caught completely unprepared by the pandemic.”