The Future Leaders Awards program is brought to you in partnership with PointClickCare. The program is designed to recognize up-and-coming industry members who are shaping the next decade of senior housing, skilled nursing, home health, and hospice care. To see this year’s Future Leaders, visit https://futureleaders.agingmedia.com/.
Patrick Flaherty, co-founder of EF Senior Care, has been named a 2022 Future Leader by Skilled Nursing News.
To become a Future Leader, an individual is nominated by their peers. The candidate must be a high-performing employee who is 40-years-old or younger, a passionate worker who knows how to put vision into action, and an advocate for seniors and the committed professionals who ensure their well-being.
Flaherty sat down with Skilled Nursing News to talk about his career trajectory and what the future holds for skilled nursing, including the need for greater innovation to rise above a “crisis of resources.”
What drew you to this industry?
Prior to setting roots in the senior care industry, I had a passion for volunteering for some of the most vulnerable in our community: children and seniors. When I saw an opportunity to start my own company in the senior care space, I never looked back. I’m excited every day at the opportunity to provide excellent care for people, and support those who are doing the same.
What’s your biggest lesson learned since starting to work in this industry?
Every operator on the ground in the long-term care industry can have several groups pushing and pulling at the management team. Banks, landlords, investors, ‘corporate’… they each have their own priorities and demands.
EF Senior Care was founded on the principle that if you care for your residents and staff first, a successful business will follow. Our lesson learned over careers in the industry is that there is no deal too good to walk away from if all parties are not aligned with that core value.
If you could change one thing with an eye toward the future of skilled nursing, what would it be?
As an industry, we need to innovate and accept change. Skilled nursing home operations have permanently shifted, and many folks are reluctant to admit it.
Nursing homes are battling a well-known crisis of resources right now; there is too much to do and not enough hands to do it. Emerging technology will help focus scarce resources where they are most needed and improve outcomes in real time.
What do you foresee as being different about the nursing home industry looking ahead to 2023?
There’s so much demand for quality staff that if you’re not an employer of choice, you’re really going to struggle. The providers that get this right will be a magnet for excellent staff, and anyone who has gotten by in the past without this being a focus may not make it to 2024.
In a word, how would you describe the future of skilled nursing?
Promising.
What quality must all Future Leaders possess?
Compassion – if you embrace this with real integrity, you’ll have a great career and positively influence countless individuals who need it the most.
If you could give advice to yourself looking back to your first day in the industry, what would it be and why?
To immediately be on the leading edge of innovation in nursing homes. Many of these technologies are hitting on the founding principle of EF Senior Care, to relentlessly care first for residents and staff in everything we do.
We are now seeing systems that streamline operations and improve clinical outcomes in ways never before imagined (including our own software product).
The secondary benefit: increased job satisfaction, morale, retention and recruitment of the highest quality staff.
