As a 40-year veteran of long-term care operations and management, Steve Chies has seen — and led — a lot of noted developments.
WIth the Vision Centre’s 6th Annual Symposium at hand early next week, he is optimistically looking forward to even more. Long-term care peers would do well to hear him out.
In addition to the Centre’s sessions and work activities Monday and Tuesday in Bloomington, IN, Chies says he has his eye on a September strategic planning session, where as board chairman he will push the group to start pursuing public-policy initiatives. It’s hard to argue with his view that leaders in Washington don’t have a clue as to how important local LTC leaders are to promoting quality.
“From my standpoint, being in operations all my life, I’ve seen the difference leadership makes at the bedside. This has been my driving force behind what I’ve done at AHCA (as board chairman, and other posts) and now with the Vision Centre,” he told me Thursday. “How do we recruit, train and get to better quality care?”
The Vision Centre’s mission is to help create more college and university programs in senior care and living management. Along with getting more recognition from bureaucrats, Chies also is intent on learning more from students themselves.
The key to finding and building better leaders is first finding out what truly motivates them, he said. Many have had a family member employed in long-term care and that is their springboard into the sector’s workforce.
But a lot of professionals in other fields may not realize just how prime they could be for LTC management, he added. Many nurses, social workers and other affiliated professionals could be perfect to assume greater administration duties, he believes. No longer working rotating shifts, nights, weekends and holidays could be appealing, he believes.
In addition to his other duties, Chies is the president of his family’s LTC corporation: North Cities Health Care, which is now in its 60th year. He also is in his 12th year as the manager of St. Joseph College’s long-term care program, the only one in the country that’s NAB-accredited.
“For a lot of students I see, this is a third career for them. Maybe they worked construction or were a nursing assistant. They tend to be fairly enthused about [entering long-term care management],” he noted. “They know what they’re getting into.”
The pandemic actually should help the Vision Centre’s drive to develop more leaders, he pointed out. With online learning having grown so much, students have many more opportunities, and they should continue to grow.
Eventually, one would hope that the Vision Centre, or more specifically, its endorsing organizations, would start devoting more resources to polishing the sector’s image.
There aren’t too many fields where a student can get a four-year degree and almost immediately make upwards of $85,000 a year (in many places) and be in charge of a $10 million budget. While making a demonstrable difference in people’s lives, Chies points out.
Creating more enthusiasm among the potential student base — no matter what their age or experience — would be a great, gravely needed start. And a group like the Vision Centre could be just the catalyst needed to get the field to be considered as a desirable goal for students who will be future leaders.
James M. Berklan is McKnight’s Long-Term Care News’ Executive Editor and a Best Commentary award winner in the 2024 Neal Awards, which are given annually for the nation’s best specialized business journalism.
Opinions expressed in McKnight’s Long-Term Care News columns are not necessarily those of McKnight’s.
