Strategic Planning Day 2016

The Pennwood Board and Key Staff members met on the 24^th of June 2016 at Pennwood Village for their Annual Strategic Planning Day, hosted by Mary O’Toole, Director of Pathways Training. During the day we listened to presentations by key staff on their experiences and future direction for our organisation.

Anne Brown opened the meeting with objectives for the year and talked about staying focused on CDC and person centered care as well as customer service and the impact it is going to have on our industry. The main messages were that we are running a Business and Consumer Directed Care is here to stay. View Anne’s presentation:  Strategic Planning Day – A Brown

Stephen Lockhart spoke about the impact of security, malware and links in emails to potential viruses. To minimise this risk we are considering external hosting by Logic+. There was also discussion about uninterruptible power supply (UPS) to our telephone system and to LeeCare if we chose to continue with the in-house server. There is considerable costs associated with this project as well as maintaining our ongoing relationship with Logic+.

Dubravka Blazevic our site manager spoke about ACFI funding cuts and how this will affect our budgets and working hours. She also discussed her recent leadership training and mentoring with Stephen Dyt. The Brian Tracy Global Professional Development|Corporate Training inspired and motivated her and she now has her own little Uni On Wheels on the way to and from work.

Andrijana Jovic our Finance Manager presented numerous graphs on KPMG bench marking Pennwood Village with similar sized organisations. The Village came out favorably on most of the areas associated with residential financial indicators around bonds, RAD and DAP.

Ljubica Vukoje and Myriam Freer from Pennwood Home Care gave a presentation about the strategic model of running Home Care Packages since March 2014. Pennwood Home Care commenced using their new electronic Home Care Package program through e-Tools in July 2015, this has made a huge difference in regards to running these packages on a CDC basis. The Home Care team also presented their plan for Human Resources and Marketing in light of the changes happening in Feb 2017.

Krzysztof Tomaszczyk our maintenance supervisor discussed energy saving strategies, going green with solar, updating our water sprinkler system and bore water. Bore would need to be drilled down to 100m to a T1 level which should be adequate, a new pump should cost $28K and we have to purchase a quota of water at $10K – total of $38K investment which would last up to 20 years. Krzysztof also demonstrated easy to use remote for client’s air conditioners and TVs.

Pennwood would like to acknowledge Brian Sellers and his wife for preparing the beautiful seafood and cold cut meat platters, which were enjoyed by all during our lunch break.

Mary O’Toole talked about Healthy Ageing and promoted the strong message of “Walk Till You Die”, and introduced a policy on Health Ageing. Exercise Physiologist, Mat Roessler, talked about his program for introducing exercises and preventative health care programs. There were also inspirational reflections from Mary O’Toole about staying focused on lifestyle and having a Good Life Model with ability to take risks. The Healthy Ageing Video and book is available through our lifestyle team, please contact Cetin Tezcan.

Chris Treloar, Head Cook, and Brian Sellers, Customer Service Co-ordinator, spoke about the new resident menu, resident food choices, new food moulds for soft diets and food safety plan. Brian spoke about raising the bar on customer services in the Village. Brian emphasised key communication skills such as listening attentively, table settings, not rushing residents during meal times, serving one course at a time and special white table cloth functions. Anne Brown acknowledged Brian’s workmenship in regards to varnishing the tables in the training room.

Dipti Hamal, Lifestyle Co-ordinator, spoke about her successful multicultural leadership training through TAFE. Dipti also gave a tear jerking presentation on the Nepal Earthquake and  Nepal School Fundraiser.

Clincical Nurse, Jenny Cook, and RN Cathy McCarthy, spoke about the future direction for registered nurses in a changing environment.

All this information proved helpful when the Board reconvened to undertake a cause and root analysis and to make some important decisions for our future direction.