When Janet Perreault was an assisted living director of nursing, she constantly stressed about stepping away from her phone.

She remembers doing laundry, getting distracted by another task and returning to her phone 20 minutes later. She worried about what she may have missed.

Her phone even went with her on her jet ski, tucked in a waterproof bag.

“If someone needed you, you had to answer,” says Janet, now a director of reimbursement for assisted living clinical services at Cassia. “That was a big stress that you can’t miss that call. It’s an important job.”

Every director of health services at an assisted living without a nurse on duty 24/7 was always on call when not at work. They needed to be available to help unlicensed staff with everything from small questions to emergencies.

“We had nurses who, literally for 30 or 40 years, had never been able to walk away from a phone,” Janet says.

The Need for a Solution

Janet says nurses voiced concerns about never getting a break and “we heard that loud and clear.”

Figuring out how to address those concerns took time.

“It was always a dream to have some sort of service,” Janet says.

Cassia researched outside companies that provide on-call services for assisted living communities.

“It was just a number to call,” Janet says. “They weren’t going to take care of the issue. They were just going to answer the phone. We immediately said, ‘No, that’s not what we’re looking for. That’s not going to take care of what we needed.’ We knew our nurses wouldn’t settle for that.”

The solution needed to communicate and solve problems, not just create more work for when the director of health services returned to the job.

A Better System

Cassia created a new after-hours call program in March 2023.

“I had to make sure this on call after-hours program was an extension of our directors, not a remote help desk call,” Janet says. “It had to be the same type of person they could trust that they would take care of their aides. That was going to be crucial or it wasn’t going to be worth our time to do it.”

Cassia hired Sara Ament as director of the after-hours call program. She built a team of eight nurses. They all have nursing licenses in the five states Cassia serves: Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, Colorado and Florida.

“They all live in various areas of Minnesota,” Sara says. “At the beginning, I sent them to a building for multiple days to do Cassia cultural training … If they have no assisted living experience, they shadow for much longer.”

The team works weeknights, weekends and observed holidays. At least one nurse is on call during those hours.

Cassia Service Standards in Action

The program showcases many of Cassia’s eight service standards.

Creating the program took innovation, as the first of its kind in Minnesota, Janet says.

It exemplifies unity and collaboration because, “It’s the first department to unite all the assisted living communities together and bring a new set of people to bring information to the regional directors,” Sara says.

This program shows directors of nursing compassion and respect. It allows them to have better stewardship of their time with improved work-life balance.

“It’s provided excellence, too, because we’ve seen the increased the quality of care,” Janet says.

Proud and Thankful

“I’m very proud of how the program turned out and I’m very thankful that it turned out,” Janet says. “It’s so nice for the nurses. I couldn’t have asked for a better program. After the responses we got from nurses, they are beyond grateful for this program.”

“I feel blessed every single day,” Sara adds. “I’m so grateful to work for a company that is caring while supporting our teams. Our after-hours team is so grateful to be able to work remotely and have lives and families. It’s been a blessing to be a part of something so beautiful and helpful.”