Page 168 - In Pursuit of the Sunbeam.indd

paper as concepts begin taking shape.
It is critically important to ensure personal, leadership and organizational transformation processes as outlined in the Norton-Shields Change Matrix are in tandem with a conceived building or retrofit project. Otherwise, it is easy to transform only the physical environment and convince yourself you’ve made an organizational change. Once a building or retrofit project begins, it also is tempting to say, “We’ll wait until after it’s built and make the organizational changes when we move in.”
The problem is, once you take the old world into the new environment you’ve let the wolf through the door, and it is difficult to send it packing. Leave bad habits and old mindsets in the old environment. Embrace the new culture and carry it across the threshold of the new households.
The household design and how life is lived within it must be in accord to truly achieve and sustain the Household Model. However, if you have to choose between changing your organization and creating a pretty space, choose the former. One thing worse than traditional nursing home service in a traditionally designed building is traditional nursing home service in a building designed as a Household Model. It simply doesn’t work. Having a built environment like home without the reality of home only magnifies the ills of the traditional system. More importantly, the very nature of the Household Model’s physical design is at odds with traditional staffing patterns and methodologies.
Do or Die
Truth is, the traditional nursing home model is fast approaching a long overdue death. You can either “save” money while driving the organization down a death spiral, or pull together the resources needed to invest in your future.
Traditional nursing home buildings continue to age and depreciate. If you tabulate the expense of enabling the existing physical environment through another life cycle, you likely will be surprised at the capital resources needed to simply maintain the status quo. Comparing that tabulation with the costs of a new or retrofitted household environment may show capital dollars can be utilized more wisely than you thought.
Put bluntly, if you don’t physically (and culturally) reinvent your organization, a competitor will likely beat you to the punch. The winds of change are gathering. The long-term care establishment, notorious for remaining static, is rapidly being surrounded by a spiral of change. It is a mistake to think past and present inertia will continue. New ways are
“You can either ‘save’ money while driving the organization down a death spiral or pull together
the resources needed to invest in your future.”
Environmental Transformation 153