The Future Leaders Awards program is brought to you in partnership with PointClickCare (BHB, SHN, SNN) and Homecare Homebase (HHCN, HSPN). The program is designed to recognize up-and-coming industry members who are shaping the future of behavioral health, home health, hospice and palliative care, senior housing and skilled nursing. To see this year’s Future Leaders, visit https://futureleaders.agingmedia.com/.
Aubrey Simmons, RN regional MDS consultant, has been named a 2023 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.
Simmons sat down with Skilled Nursing News to talk about her start as a CNA, and why education support at the state and federal level is crucial to stemming turnover.
What drew you to this industry?
I started in the industry as a certified nursing assistant shortly after I graduated high school. At that time, I was so young, I just turned 18. A
s I got into the industry, I felt like it was a good niche for me given my background and where I grew up. My parents own a mom and pop fishing resort in the middle of nowhere in Fremont, Wisconsin, so I grew up in the hospitality business. When you get into [the nursing home industry], it’s a lot of hospitality. I felt like I had that experience that helped me grow.
It was a perk, having that background, having good customer service skills with the residents, you know, meeting their needs, knowing what they like for breakfast, lunch and dinner, how they like their hair done. All of that was natural to me, because that’s all that I ever knew. So, I just stuck with it.
What’s your biggest lesson learned since starting to work in this industry?
Never be too confident in what you think you know, unless you have the supporting regulations. In this industry, it is changing so fast, and what you might have known last month, last week, last year, as the right thing to do may not be so today. Every day, things are changing. You want to make sure everyone is equipped with the right information and knowledge to do their job well, and to be successful.
If you could change one thing with an eye toward the future of skilled nursing, what would it be?
More access to education from either our state or federal resources. It’s hard to keep up not only with that revolving door of staffing, but also [regulatory] changes in the industry. You go to school and you become a nurse, or you go to school and you become a social worker – when you get into the SNF industry, it’s not like what you learned in school. There’s so many regulations. I think the state of Wisconsin does pretty good, but they could have classes that we can utilize during the orientation period that provide some sort of basic certification of competency, to meet all the regulatory standards that we have.
If they could provide those resources to make sure that everyone’s properly educated until we get the staffing situation figured out globally. We’ve had people come in for two weeks, three weeks, maybe even a couple of months, and then they’re gone.
What do you foresee as being different about the skilled nursing industry looking ahead to the rest of 2023, and into 2024?
The impacts of the significant changes that will be made to the MDS 3.0 Resident Assessment Instrument coming Oct. 1. This is going to change our Five-Star Rating System now that Section G will be removed, create new standards on how facilities manage care areas on resident health literacy, transportation barriers that may impact care during the discharge planning process, and social isolation, along with reimbursement changes that are tied not only to the MDS but also the Value Based Purchasing Program (VBP) and the Quality Reporting Program (QRP).
In a word, how would you describe the future of skilled nursing?
Dynamic. It is going to be constantly changing all the time.
What quality must all Future Leaders possess?
Being transparent. I think the more that you’re able to open up and let your employees know what is going on, and the rationale on why things are going on the way they are, I think that’s very important. I’ve had great leaders as I’ve been growing in my role, and they’ve always sat down and said, ‘this is what we need to do and why,’ and so I think being transparent is a huge quality that leaders should have.
If you could give advice to yourself looking back to your first day in the industry, what would it be and why?
That it is okay to make mistakes, admit your mistakes, then just continue to learn from those mistakes. That is how you will grow and be better.
To learn more about the Future Leaders program, visit https://futureleaders.agingmedia.com/.
