Uniting LTC: Real Stories, Real Solutions, Better Outcomes
It was important for me as an administrator to shine the light. And you learn through that process how important everybody is. You can't ever forget it.
James Dieter:For me, stress is a problem without a solution.
Kip Kruger:When you do that well, I think it transcends your facility. We need to
James Dieter:have some conversations with those that are excelling.
Chris Light:You know, that's just like lighting cash on fire. The operators certainly feel like it's us, like they're against them versus like, really what you want is Collaborative effort. Tell us about what your struggle is so that we can understand and appreciate that when we're interacting with you.
James Dieter:I mean, that's what it's gonna take. If we're really going to improve patient outcomes and experiences, it's gotta be a group effort. Right. You're gonna have to come together.
Kip Kruger:Welcome to Our Purpose Podcast, the podcast where stories from skilled nursing and long term care come to life. I'm your host, Kip Krueger, a voice shaped by lived experience, faith, and a deep belief that every person in care deserves dignity, compassion, and a champion in their corner. We're gonna talk about lots of fun things here. Your cohost, James Dieter, Chris Light. Good to be here, guys.
James Dieter:Hey, man. Yeah.
Kip Kruger:Happy to be here.
Chris Light:Yeah. For sure.
Kip Kruger:This is fun. So, James, let's get into it. Why why are we here? I've done a podcast before. It's fun.
Kip Kruger:It's entertaining so far. It's fun. Episode one. Why are we here?
James Dieter:Yeah. I think the the impetus for this podcast came with just pushing the quality culture and long term care. Right? So, know, we we all know each other through work. We work together and what we've done has been really innovative in trying to come up with new solutions to old problems.
James Dieter:As we continue to push quality throughout our organization, it's been a strong belief that we could actually help kind of bring that culture to the industry as a whole. And I think that would be, you know, probably one of my biggest points why I wanna do this. Yeah. Because I wanna get those stories out of who's doing it right, and then others will follow. You know?
James Dieter:High tide rises all boats.
Kip Kruger:What's what's what's our purpose mean to you? What is that's a that's a that's a good one. Different different name. Where'd it come from?
James Dieter:Yeah. So the our our purpose was really, I think, devised out of our core values. Right? So our purpose is the patients. Right?
James Dieter:Period. That's why we do this. There's a lot of different areas we could work, a lot of ways to make money out there. I think the interest comes from a major focus to improve patient outcomes and experiences. That's the purpose.
James Dieter:We're here for the patients. We wanna talk about the patients and what works for the patients.
Kip Kruger:Good. Yeah. So, Chris, talk talk to me, man. Who who who's Chris Light? Tell the tell the audience the the light of the world.
Kip Kruger:Who's the light of the world?
Chris Light:The light of the world. I mean, professionally, I serve as our chief operating officer, but my background is highly entrepreneurial in the lab space and a couple other companies. And so I've been primarily focused on long term care for, I don't know, maybe eight or nine years now. Yeah. And really developed, I guess, like a huge caring for long term care.
Chris Light:This is part of that coming out of that. And I think the industry as a whole generally does a really good job. I think outside of the industry looking in, I think a lot of people have negative connotations when you think of nursing homes. But I think inside, there's a lot of fantastic people and a lot of good things that are happening. And I generally think from the outsider's perspective that a lot of people are just uneducated on the confines of the business, so to speak.
Chris Light:Right? And so, you know, the easiest example of that is if you go to a Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn sets their rates, and that doesn't happen in long term care. And so we're all of us are working really, really diligently to do the best with what we have to work with at the end of the day. Right? And so there are really a lot of folks who are doing a great great job.
Chris Light:I think we're one of those one of those people. And so I think part of this whole idea of the podcast was to really share that kind of stuff, bringing guests who are doing well, things that we see we have a good view because we work with so many folks across different geographies. And so, yeah, I think that's it.
Kip Kruger:Lots of folks. Lots of folks through the industry. Yep. What about you, Kip? What's your story?
Kip Kruger:Man, my story is is is long. Nursing home administrator for twelve years. Enjoyed this space. I'm sure some of you may know well, let's we'll we'll we'll say it first, the TikTok. I was a TikTok nursing home administrator.
Kip Kruger:That was fun. That was fun. It was I did it for twelve years. I actually was doing really cool stuff with my nursing home residents before TikTok was even a thing. I did it in San Antonio.
Kip Kruger:I first started in San Antonio. And probably one of the coolest things was the the send off. So we did a send off. I'm not sure if you've seen it. If we could pull some videos up, that would be pretty cool.
Kip Kruger:Yeah. But it basically was a red carpet rollout. So we were sending patients who were going home from rehab. They came to our facility, rehab back up, and they went home. They were our VIPs.
Kip Kruger:And we rolled the red carpet out.
James Dieter:That was cool.
Kip Kruger:Had, like, a red rope, and we all clapped together and sang celebrate by cool and the gang.
James Dieter:Yeah. That's awesome.
Kip Kruger:We sang that, and we sent them off. We start actually actually did not start in San Antonio. I started it in Wichita Falls. Nursing administrator there and started doing TikToks. Just kinda doing the same thing, shining a light on long term care.
Kip Kruger:There was, during that time, it was right outside of COVID. So people really wanted to see, like, good positive Yeah. Feelings. Yeah. And we showcased that, and we put it on some videos, and they went viral.
Kip Kruger:Think I the most viral one was a turkey. I was in a turkey costume for Thanksgiving. And before Christmas, I told my activity director, was like, hey. Bring out the Christmas trees, and I'm gonna run-in and outside of the Christmas trees and let our residents shoot me with a Nerf gun.
Chris Light:And we Like hunting.
Kip Kruger:Yeah. It's hunting. And at the end, like, I laid down and, like, I was that was their turkey hunting fun, I think. Yeah. But we always ended it with that's how you make people smile.
Kip Kruger:That's how you make people feel appreciated. Like, that those are the things that matter. And I think that's one thing that I'm excited about with this is that James came, and you both came with that idea. Was like, Let's do a podcast. I'm like, wow.
Kip Kruger:Okay. And we got to thinking about it. Was like, man, there's so many really cool stories in long term care that we're gonna be able to showcase, and we're gonna be able to let people tell. I think there's so many wonderful things that can combat the negative. Right.
Kip Kruger:And I'm excited to do that. It's gonna be fun traveling all over, seeing all of our our clients Yeah. Seeing all of our partners, and letting them tell their story.
James Dieter:100%. I mean, I think that this is going to be equally educational. You know? A little bit of about advocacy. Yeah.
James Dieter:It's real life stories. Getting to hear what's working out there, what's not working. And think it's really gonna be the stories and the people that come up and tell those that's gonna make a difference. Right? My goal is that there's going to be folks out there listening to this that hear something go, I'm gonna do that tomorrow.
James Dieter:Yeah. And then that's gonna have a positive experience moving forward.
Kip Kruger:So What's what's your what's your goal with this? What do you wanna accomplish?
Chris Light:I'm just excited to kinda be part of it. I think we'll cover things like current events, you know, things that are real. Like, obviously, the the big beautiful bill just happened. That's an a major impact. But I think mainly what I enjoyed most is building people and building business.
Kip Kruger:Right?
Chris Light:And people make that up. And so we compare our business all the time to skilled nursing because it's similar in a lot of ways from a people standpoint. And so I just truly enjoy building people like that and trying to speak to other people who are doing it on a, you know, in a kind of a parallel business, so to speak, a complementary business, not a competitive business, but to do more of that and kinda share some of those stories. I'm looking to learn from from a lot of these people, hopefully. Yeah.
Chris Light:And and share some of that of what's going on in in skilled nursing.
Kip Kruger:Good. Think my biggest question, I guess, some of the audience question is, like, how often are we gonna do this? This is a pretty rare opportunity that we're all gonna be able to sit in this room together. So episode one, maybe we'll do two together as well. But how often are dropping these?
Kip Kruger:What do you what's what's the guidelines? What's the option for us?
Chris Light:Are we making commitments on episode one?
Kip Kruger:Well, I should we? Maybe we maybe we shouldn't.
James Dieter:I think it's safe to say we're gonna put put one out every couple weeks. Yep. Being in the same room is not going to happen. Sure.
Kip Kruger:But we're
James Dieter:gonna do some remote stuff. We'll get it we'll get it together and put it out. Yeah.
Kip Kruger:I like that. That sounds good. Yeah. What else can the audience expect? We covered current news.
Kip Kruger:We shared I mean, you know educational stuff. What else?
James Dieter:From my standpoint, like I really hope to share a lot about, you know, I'm heavily involved with, you know, just the health plans, understanding the economics of skilled nursing to the best we can, how it plays in with legislation. Chris mentioned the one big beautiful bill, what kind of impacts it had on Medicaid and how that's gonna funnel on down and flow down to to the skilled facilities. And, you know, I think we're gonna talk about assisted livings, home health, home care, kind of like the general long term care space here. So but from the standpoint of, you know, legislation impacts from the health health plans, the payers, you know, population health management, I'm really gonna try to cover as much of that as possible and be bringing on some folks that are really experts in that Yeah. In those fields that we can ask some good questions too and I'll learn more and more and more about.
James Dieter:But, yeah, that should be good.
Kip Kruger:So a home for everybody. A home for everybody to share
James Dieter:their their purpose. Oh, absolutely.
Kip Kruger:Yeah. Nursing home administrators, DONs, everybody in in the spectrum.
Chris Light:Yeah. I think the guest list is gonna get quite diverse as far as people that we we interact with on here. And I don't think it's set in stone yet. I think we've all kind of kicked around a handful of ideas that I think we know will work Yeah. Well, but we'll just kinda see how it goes.
Chris Light:So back to your commitment question. I kinda think of it as like, I'm good for 10, and we'll see how it
James Dieter:goes after that.
Kip Kruger:If it goes well, we'll do 10 more.
Chris Light:Yeah. If we're TikTok viral like you, then we'll do more. I mean
Kip Kruger:May may we could.
Chris Light:Not counting on it.
Kip Kruger:Can we put this can we ask our producer if we can put this on TikTok? For sure. Right? Okay. Good.
Kip Kruger:We can do it. There you go. That'd be fun. Perfect. Lovely.
Kip Kruger:Alright. Let's get into it. Let's let's ask some questions. Ask some good questions. I know you got some good ones.
Kip Kruger:Ask ask us a kick
James Dieter:us off, James. You know, I I I think it'd be interesting. We're really dive in Yeah. Episode one. Sure.
James Dieter:Gonna dive in. I think we can talk a little bit about just I'd I'd like to hear a little bit about, like, disease management and skilled nursing. Right? Think that's where a lot of folks have questions about the the the big ones. Right?
James Dieter:So you have sepsis, you have pneumonia, and how it affects, know, rehospitalizations, recidivism. Yeah. You're an administrator. Yeah. Why don't you talk a little bit about, you know, what tactics are used to decrease rehospitalizations and skilled nursing?
Kip Kruger:I would say from from my career and experience, I'll go with handwashing. Really? That was huge.
James Dieter:It's that effective.
Kip Kruger:I thought we thought, maybe it suggests otherwise, but handwashing was super important for incontinent care, having the nurses demonstrate proper handwashing techniques before and after. I think that often gets overlooked because they're going from patient to patient to patient. And I feel like the infection rate can skyrocket if proper hand washing techniques are not used.
James Dieter:No. I mean, it's common sense, but, yeah, it makes yes. It's important that you wash hands.
Chris Light:It's funny you say that. I spoke to a a wound care nurse Yeah. Like, a couple weeks ago. This is at a dinner you were at too. And she had moved on from wound care to a different company.
Chris Light:But I was like, what's the secret of wound care? Like, for how long you've been doing it? And, you know, what she said was washing the wound.
Kip Kruger:Washing Yeah. That's right. She did say that.
Chris Light:I was like, what about, like, lab testing and antibiotics and all? She's like, washing the wound and making sure that the dressing Yeah. Is fresh. She's like, and if you can manage that, like, everything else goes really well.
James Dieter:Isn't that so many different areas of just showing up? Yeah. Show up. Yep. Do a
Chris Light:good job. Do the small things.
James Dieter:Do your job.
Kip Kruger:The I think the small things are are so important because just not washing hands, like I I feel like some of the wounds maybe she was referring to were so close to the, like, the coccyx area and having, like, BM in that area and not properly taking your time doing the right things increased infection, increased improper healing.
Chris Light:Yeah. Yeah. It's a bare minimum. Right? We talk about bare minimum.
Chris Light:It's like do the job you're hired to do. That's bare minimum. That's what people expect you to do. Yeah. But if you do it really well and you can do it for a large amount of people, that's, like, becomes spectacular.
Chris Light:You know?
James Dieter:I mean, scaling bare minimum is challenging.
Chris Light:A 100%.
James Dieter:Right? To get a lot of people to do a good job Yep. Becomes tougher and tougher. I mean, that's what we're working on, so difficult. I mean, working on it all the time.
Kip Kruger:Yeah. That was that was huge too. I mean, the the the CNAs who were in all of the facilities, they have a tough job. Mhmm. Yeah.
Kip Kruger:Tough job. And I felt and I hope that many people who who worked alongside me would say that, like, I I would I appreciated them. And I think just showing the appreciation of just the hard work that they do on a day in and day out basis was was important. And I think the more that you could show them that you care and we talk about culture all the time at PHS. I think that's super important.
Kip Kruger:But just showing people that you care and that you trust you trust what they do to do a good job. Mhmm. And you give them just the ability to the the comfort level to actually perform.
Chris Light:Yeah. You make people feel good generally. Like, that's kinda
Kip Kruger:You think so?
Chris Light:Yeah. I think your aura is like aura.
Kip Kruger:I like that. Oh my.
James Dieter:You sound like my 16 year old.
Chris Light:I think no. But you you generally make people feel good. That's why you're super connected. Like, you you people like to be around you. Right?
Chris Light:You're happy and, like, I think so I would just be curious. Like, I think naturally that would probably come to you anyway. Like, I could I obviously didn't know you when you were an administrator, but I can, like, see you as an administrator doing all the things we've talked about. And so I would just say, like, specifically, like, what did you do to a CNA to make them feel that you cared? Other than just, hey.
Chris Light:How you doing? Right? Like but there's so much more to it.
James Dieter:Yeah. I mean, part of that comes from listening. Right?
Kip Kruger:True.
James Dieter:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, just making sure they they're heard.
Kip Kruger:I felt like so I think one thing that we did or one thing that we as a group did is a monthly team member meeting. And so I I did T shirts.
Chris Light:Mhmm.
Kip Kruger:And I did a different color T shirt every month.
James Dieter:Like, everybody wore the same T shirt?
Kip Kruger:Everyone wore the same shirt.
Chris Light:Now he only makes them for himself. Yep. Because I still see
Kip Kruger:him T shirts all the time. I made a you'll have a podcast T shirt. I'm I'm wearing one next time. I'm gonna get one. Get one Probably an undershirt
James Dieter:right now.
Chris Light:Yeah.
Kip Kruger:We we made so we made t shirts. And I put a a a slogan on the back. Like, I remember one was love others.
Chris Light:Mhmm.
Kip Kruger:And so during that month, in that meeting, you only got a t shirt if you came to the meeting. Alright. Yeah. And so during that meeting, we would talk about all the good things. Sure.
Kip Kruger:And those meetings were specifically directed at bringing the good things that you've done. Because I feel like in long term care, and probably for any space for that matter, you can really dwell on the negative. For sure. And it was important for me as an administrator to share shine the light. Mhmm.
Kip Kruger:And part of that ending of the monthly meeting, thirty minutes, forty five minutes, sometimes an hour Yeah. Depending how long you took, was a thing on the back. Love others, others first, or something like that on the back. Or be alight. Be alight was one of them too.
Kip Kruger:But it was just encouraging.
Chris Light:Be alight.
Kip Kruger:Be alight. Light? I didn't get that one. I should make you one. I'll make you one next time.
Kip Kruger:But that was it. It was it was I think it was listening to them, but also just encouraging them that their job is hard. Super hard. Yeah. Having them understand their importance.
Kip Kruger:Yeah. They're super important. I mean, even the people in the kitchen, even though, like, the housekeepers, everybody. I I think I treated everybody with the same amount of respect. No matter if you're a DON or if you were a regional or you were housekeeper.
Kip Kruger:I think everyone was super important. Yeah. And equally important. And we kind of flipped the the the hierarchy and whatever, like, the top, flipped it backwards, and put my I I try to put myself on the bottom in In the reverse other pyramid. Reverse pyramid.
James Dieter:Yeah. You know, it's interesting with you mentioned everyone's important. I think as an entrepreneur, we learn that. Right? As doing startups, you do every job.
James Dieter:Yeah. Everybody takes out the trash, and everybody does the bank account. And it's I mean, you you you end up doing every job in the company, and you learn through that process how important everybody is. You can't ever forget it. Mhmm.
James Dieter:And it's it's a little it comes a little bit easier, you know, if you're an entrepreneur to understand that point.
Kip Kruger:Can we talk about stress? Do we have to?
Chris Light:Have you seen his picture when we started the company?
James Dieter:It was good?
Kip Kruger:I was at dinner the other night. A
Chris Light:little younger.
Kip Kruger:I was at dinner actually
James Dieter:in Florida with one of Chris' friends. And he's 38. Right? Yeah. Yeah.
James Dieter:So Nick's, like, 38. We're sitting at dinner, and I'm sitting there with my son, and he's a teenager. And the guy comes over, and he's, like, opening a bottle of wine. He goes, would your two sons like a glass as well? I was like, come come again?
James Dieter:What do you mean my two sons? He was your two sons. Would they like glass as well? And I said, do you think this man is my son?
Kip Kruger:The 38 year old. 38 year old. Yeah.
James Dieter:I was like, that's that's stress, Kip. Let's see. We've talked about stress. We can move on. Never
Kip Kruger:done. Let's not cover it. I think stress in long term care is is is is there. Yeah. I would be I would be interested to see what what's what's stress in entrepreneurial.
James Dieter:Go ahead.
Kip Kruger:How do you manage stress? Like, it's gotta be super difficult.
Chris Light:I would just for I'll answer the question, but I wanna, excuse me, kick it back to you real quick because I I'll never forget the story. You told me this. It's like when you were a minister, you would go to bed with your phone on your ear or on your pillow.
Kip Kruger:Right?
Chris Light:So just kinda share that real quick. Because I think that's, like, clearly stress.
Kip Kruger:Stress. Oh, the administrative stress, I don't miss. It's hard. It's a different level. It's completely different now.
Kip Kruger:But when I resigned and came to PHS, I will vividly remember putting my phone down on a charger, and I had a charger kinda up like that, and turning my ringer off.
Chris Light:You can't do that.
James Dieter:I can't
Kip Kruger:do that?
James Dieter:I've been
Kip Kruger:doing it. Sorry. But that's that we we turned it we just turned it off. Yeah. And it was it was just it was just different.
Kip Kruger:Having this the ringer on all the time and and to not even really be able to get that great of a night of sleep Yeah. If a fire goes or if something floods. Yeah. I mean, you're it's always in the back of your mind. Like, no matter where you are, no matter where you stand, you always you have to worry about not only your staff members, but your residents as well.
Kip Kruger:Like, you have 250 people to worry about on a daily basis.
James Dieter:Yeah. You know, I I don't think that's not really how I equate stress. I think about back when I used to do rounds, you know, and I was taking calls. I mean, it was there was not a night. I was seven on, seven off, and I would have to do orders, med orders in the middle of the night, every night.
James Dieter:Like, I'd usually get a call one to three in the morning, another one from three to five in the morning. So it was I wake up two, three times a night, every night, seven nights in a week. I wouldn't say that was the stressful part. For me, stress is a a a problem without a solution. That's where I find stress.
James Dieter:I find it. I'm just like, it's not that you're working hard or you're putting in a lot of hours or you're being bothered, you're not getting your sleep. It's it's when you don't feel like you have us a, like, light at the end of the tunnel.
Kip Kruger:That's stress. Because you have you're the only person?
James Dieter:Yeah. Mean, I think it's harder when you're the only person. Right. But I mean, as someone said, there's less stress because you have more people. And now we have, you know, 600 people around us, and we're still dealing with stressful events.
James Dieter:But I I quit calling them problems. I started calling them challenges. Challenges? Yeah. Challenges are not problems anymore.
James Dieter:That's my thought on stress.
Chris Light:James can handle an immense amount of stress. Well, an immense amount.
Kip Kruger:Well, I
James Dieter:mean, it's like a muscle. Right? Yeah. You build it up, I guess. But the stress I have right now is this headphone doesn't stay on me.
James Dieter:I didn't wanna wear headphones.
Chris Light:You cut your hair over here looking like Marty McFly.
Kip Kruger:Let's help you out in there. Go all the way go take it all the way Adam. Up and all the way off. Now come back. There you go.
Kip Kruger:Perfect.
James Dieter:Oh, you missed it. Oh my god. Alright. Now we do. That's stress.
James Dieter:Problem without a solution.
Kip Kruger:We found a solution pretty quickly.
James Dieter:Yeah. Yeah. But I think that's that's the you know, I I always feel with stress, the quicker you work on it, the better you are, right? Because I mean, you sit there and you go, okay, sitting here with this big challenge out in front of me. What am I going to do about this?
James Dieter:And I personally always find that I will have that problem. And then I will work and work and work and work towards a solution or at least have a few different options. And then as soon as that happens, nothing's been done about the problem or the challenge. It's still there. But now that I have a solution or at least an idea of what I'm gonna do about it, the stress level goes down 90% at that point.
James Dieter:So that's my my outlook on it is that you just have to, as quickly as possible, address it. And the worst thing I think a lot of people do is they they brush it up under the rug. That's the problem. You gotta get you gotta take care of it. Yeah.
James Dieter:You gotta address it. And that's hard. Right? Because everybody wants to procrastinate.
Chris Light:Yep.
Kip Kruger:Do we talk about current events here?
James Dieter:Talk about whatever you want.
Kip Kruger:Talk about whatever you want. Are there any of current events that that are on that's front of your mind right now?
James Dieter:I mean, as far as it applies to this podcast Yeah. I would say, you know, the I I I'm very interested in seeing what is going to happen with the one big beautiful bill
Kip Kruger:Yeah.
James Dieter:And the Medicaid the trillion dollars in Medicaid cuts over the next ten years. I think that that's gonna flow down and have some effects on patient care. Yeah. It could potentially cause some problems. You know, I'm not really sure because there's an argument to be made that the cuts that were made actually bring us back to, I believe, the 2019 Medicaid levels.
James Dieter:I think we're even spending more money than we did in 2019 This Medicaid went so It skyrocketed. Skyrocketed during COVID So, '20 you know, you look at it from that perspective and think, well, okay, well, much of the Medicaid money was going to people that frankly didn't really need it? Yeah. And I would like to think that none of those people are gonna be in skilled facilities and whatnot. But, you know, that's that trickle down effect, and I think that the jury's out on what's really gonna happen, and there's still so much to read about the bill.
James Dieter:But as far as current events as it relates to this, yeah, that's that's heavily on my mind and what other you know, there's some other legislation that's we're we're thinking and looking at right now that's interesting to us.
Kip Kruger:You anything on you got anything on that?
Chris Light:From the big beautiful bill standpoint, I think it's fresh, and so we're kind of trying to learn about it. Yeah. And kinda remains to be seen. I think it's actually something we should probably that would be guest worthy of someone who's an expert specifically with Medicaid
Kip Kruger:Yeah.
Chris Light:That can address it. But clearly, the big cut in the big beautiful bill that will impact long term care skilled nursing is the Medicaid cuts. Right? Which I think if I'm if this is correct, it's like a trillion dollars over ten years. Something like that.
Chris Light:It's a lot of of money. Is that correct?
James Dieter:Yep.
Chris Light:Is that right? Yeah.
Kip Kruger:That's right.
Chris Light:Yeah. I'm looking at a summary here from Grok. But so that's the big thing. Right? And then who's qualified, who's not qualified, and kinda to go through that.
Chris Light:I think, you know, you go through qualifications as, like, as far as, like, ability to hold a job and things of that nature. I think specific to skilled nursing, that could there's more nuance there. I think, like, an expert Mhmm. Who's really gone through it would be really worth our time. To learn about it, it's gonna impact all
James Dieter:of us.
Chris Light:You know?
Kip Kruger:That's I think that's what I'm most excited about this podcast is learning from others. Mhmm.
Chris Light:Mhmm.
Kip Kruger:Like, I'm not an expert. Yeah. Not not an expert. Don't know everything. May misspeak.
Kip Kruger:May may may do some things. Hopefully, I get most of it right. But it's gonna be fun to ensure have good conversations with people who know a whole lot more than me.
James Dieter:Yeah. I'm excited about Right? I think that we're we're gonna touch on some really important topics that people wanna hear about. I mean, I think it's really important that we get feedback from whoever's watching and listening. And what do you guys wanna hear about?
James Dieter:Yeah. What do you what do you wanna know?
Kip Kruger:What do you not wanna hear about? What do you
James Dieter:Yeah. Probably handwashing techniques.
Kip Kruger:That's the best. That's the best.
Chris Light:I think it's important we didn't say this, but in the beginning, we obviously talked about that we do work together, but this isn't a marketing podcast, so to speak. Right? Like, this is really about us having fun and getting to speak with industry insiders. And so I think we'll run the gamut of whether it's we'll have directors of nurses on directors of nursing, excuse me, chief nursing officers. Mhmm.
Chris Light:We'll probably have some building owners. You know? I think it'd be cool to get, like, just a a handful of CNAs. Like, I think
James Dieter:Yeah. The whole gang
Kip Kruger:Wouldn't that be that would be awesome.
Chris Light:You know? It's one of the things I talked to you about the other day as I saw that marketing online, and I was like, how brilliant is this? They're marketing good food. You know? And I think that stuff is really cool for us to learn a Food
Kip Kruger:was one of the things that our residents look forward to the most. Of course. Like, it's three things. Yeah. Three important things.
Kip Kruger:I felt like they just fed of course, they get fed. Yeah. But they feed off their their their Mhmm. Their their energy.
James Dieter:Yeah. That is much fun. Social aspect. Right? I mean, you're there.
James Dieter:This is where everybody comes together every day for their meals. They get to see the people they wanna see. I mean, that's a big part of their mental health.
Chris Light:A lot of people like, I don't talk about this a lot, but, like so my first job, I think you know this, but I worked in a memory care assisted living, independent living in the restaurant, like, a server and then a bartender. And so I did everything from serving tables to working the expo in the in the in the kitchen to running. We ran our own curbside delivery to independent living, like, because it was there was, like, a little community, and so we had a golf cart and we would do, you know, delivery. But the food is, that's their that's their time. Like and so you would as just as a server, I mean, you develop, like, real relationships.
Chris Light:And so, like, when I went away to college, I worked there for, I don't know, two and a half years, and then I worked a couple summers, like, when I came home, You develop real relationships over the dinner table, right, or the lunch or whatever, and it's it's really cool.
Kip Kruger:Yeah. We had family members that would come in and be like, how's the food? And they would be asking others, like, how's the food? How's the food? Yeah.
Kip Kruger:And that was so important to be able to offer good quality food. Yeah. We used to get online a lot. Yeah. See online.
Kip Kruger:Oh, this is good. Look how good this it looks. Yeah. But it wasn't just necessarily good food. It was like food that they want.
Kip Kruger:And I think involving the residents, involving them with decision making for, you're right, the activity the monthly activities, I think that when you do that well, I think it transcends your facility.
James Dieter:Yeah. And I think that's gonna going to be one of the kind of focuses here. Right? Like, is it that some facilities have great food and some some don't? Yeah.
James Dieter:Right? I mean, why we need to have some conversations with those that are excelling and try to see, you know, hey. What is it that you are doing?
Kip Kruger:Yeah. I would love to talk about staffing. If someone's really knowledgeable on how's the staffing I mean, how's the staffing world? What what's what's that look like?
James Dieter:Better now. Better now.
Kip Kruger:During COVID was was rough.
Chris Light:It's like everybody was on agency. Everybody. Everybody. Yeah.
Kip Kruger:And you were an anomaly if you didn't use agency during COVID.
Chris Light:Mhmm.
Kip Kruger:I never did. I'm just very thankful for that, but it was still How did you
James Dieter:get away with no agency?
Kip Kruger:We did an excellent job of retaining people. Like, that was you had you had no choice. You had to if someone had a problem, you couldn't just dismiss it. And there's there's so many, like, personnel problems. There's staffing pro like, staffing problems with your schedule, people not showing up Yeah.
Kip Kruger:All those things. And if you didn't immediately address it and address it in a correct way
James Dieter:Yeah.
Kip Kruger:People would leave. Yeah. Just absolutely leave. And I think that we were definitely we were definitely blessed. Yeah.
Kip Kruger:And the location and the people who were around us, we never used agency. That was that was an absolute miracle. And there's a lot of people who didn't use agency. There's a lot of people who did. Not right, wrong, or indifferent, but it was just we we just got lucky.
Kip Kruger:Yeah. We did things to
Chris Light:our point.
James Dieter:Was luck, man. It's fine. You had to have a great culture to hold people there. You had a good comp package. You did things right.
James Dieter:Masks were hard.
Chris Light:Of course, they were.
James Dieter:I still keep one in my I still keep one in my dop kit. I saw it over the weekend. I was
Chris Light:like, why
James Dieter:do I still have this?
Chris Light:Yeah. The mask.
Kip Kruger:Yeah. Yeah. That was that was hard on everybody.
Chris Light:Everybody. Yeah.
Kip Kruger:Everybody. Because you were just walking around. You were the n 90 fives were probably the hardest, but you couldn't breathe. Yeah. Then you had the face shields.
Kip Kruger:Like, that's a lot. And to wear that twenty four seven, they though, I have I have a whole new respect for all the frontline workers. Yeah. Hospitals, nursing homes, they had a they had a tough job.
Chris Light:For sure. Nursing homes got hit really hard.
Kip Kruger:Big time. Yeah. What else would you like to see? What else who who you wanna talk to?
Chris Light:I mean, I think I kinda mentioned it. I think the gamut. I wanna speak to a lot of people. Like, I'm very interested in just the nuts and bolts of, like, how to run a p and l. Right?
Chris Light:Yeah. Which, you know, it's something we constantly deal with. We're part of it. Right? Like, we land on your P and L.
Chris Light:But everybody knows skilled nursing margins are razor thin. Yeah. And and so just learning more about that of, like, what levers to pull and how to do that. Specifically, like, there was just a major article about just fines being levied against nursing homes, specifically in Texas, which is a huge presence
Kip Kruger:for us. Yep. Gone up tremendously. It's
Chris Light:gone I mean, there was an article written. I mean, it's public now, but it was in McKnight's and about how this group went from, you know, it was either a quarter million or a half a million to, like, $2,100,000 in fees in a year. And I'm like, woah. You know, that's just like lighting cash on fire. Yep.
Chris Light:And when I speak I know you speak to a lot of these folks. When I I'm always curious. And so, like, anytime we're in a meeting, I like to just ask questions that necessarily don't apply to me, but I just wanna learn. And, you know, I had a really good conversation not too long ago with with the gentleman, and he was like, you know, some of them are right or some of them are wrong. But just the enforcement all of a sudden is like I mean, I think Either it wasn't enforced and now it is, and it's coming in droves.
Chris Light:But they certainly feel this is just my kind of view from talking to people, so take it for what you will. But the operators certainly feel like it's us, like they're against them versus, like, really what you want is
Kip Kruger:Collaborative effort.
Chris Light:You want collaborative effort. Yeah. Right? And so I've heard some of these stories. You were with me at that one of those lunch meetings.
Chris Light:Was like, we did everything. We did we did up the report. We self reported that everything, and it was done. Everything looked great. And they cost them an arm and a leg.
Chris Light:Yep. Yeah. They didn't respond to them for all these days, so the fines were levying. They moved the goalpost. They're like, well, you gotta do this.
Chris Light:They did that. They're like, oh, no. No. No. You have to do this now.
Chris Light:And it's like, that's really challenging. So I think just learning them, like Mhmm. Getting someone specifically on regulation, like a lot of things, I think, would be
Kip Kruger:I'm
James Dieter:I'm very interested to see the regulatory climate and what's gonna happen, you know, specifically in this next administration. Yeah. I mean, this finds you're speaking of, that's all kind of historical, that's what's been going on and that's a big part of the the new the new guard, I guess, if you will, and see if it makes a change. But it seems like the regulatory climate's been just really ratcheted up over the years since it's caused people a lot of problems. That's tough.
James Dieter:I'm really looking forward to just seeing those that are, you know, we're we're gonna try to perhaps people on here that are actually riding legislation. I wanna get some politicians on here that are involved in the back end of what's going on on a federal standpoint and also state, you know, state of Texas specifically. I mean, we have do you know, we have most of our connections in the state where we're from, but we're also gonna talk to people outside and people in DC that just get different different perspectives of what's going on and the people who are writing the legislation out there are gonna make the changes.
Kip Kruger:I think that would be really cool to hear. Yeah.
James Dieter:And I think that people wanna understand, like, what's going on and why. Right? I mean, there's so much you start talking health care with people, and they're just like, what? Yeah. Why?
James Dieter:And I wanna get some of those
Kip Kruger:people on, and
James Dieter:we wanna sit down with them and ask them, you know, hey. This this thing doesn't make any sense to us. Yeah. Can you explain it, please? You know?
James Dieter:And there's some people that are trying to have some common sense approaches. Yeah. And they're they're they're pushing out legislation that does make sense. So Yeah. Let's get them on and hear from them.
James Dieter:So I'm I'm excited to hear from those folks.
Kip Kruger:I'd love to give I'd love to get sorry. I'd love to get a, like, a Medicaid specialist online.
James Dieter:Mhmm.
Kip Kruger:Sure. I think families could benefit from it. Just hearing, preparing, being proactive and not reactive, a just an insider perspective on, like, hey. Mom's about to go in the nursing home in the next five years. What to do?
Kip Kruger:What should you do? Mhmm. And then she's a year out or she's going into it, like, what can you expect? I think that would be really fun too to just share with families and staff members and
Chris Light:Yeah.
Kip Kruger:Just everybody, like, for entering a nursing home, preparing to entering the space, and what to do five, ten years post or pre. Mhmm. And then what to do when you're there. And then what's what reoccurring things do you have to do whenever you're in in the space? I think when my grandparents when my grandmother went there, my family had no clue what
Chris Light:to do. Yeah. Then Yeah.
Kip Kruger:They and so they relied on me to be like, hey. Guide us through this process. Right? Of course. And so if they don't have someone who's directly involved, I think that's we could definitely get the word out to family members to say, like, hey.
Kip Kruger:Here's here's how you do it. Mhmm. Because I don't know if there's another in my understanding, there's not another podcast or another informational type message for the whole spectrum. So I'm excited to do that.
James Dieter:It's gonna take some time to cover the spectrum.
Kip Kruger:Big time.
James Dieter:There's a
Kip Kruger:lot going on.
James Dieter:A lot going on out there.
Kip Kruger:We got a we got a lot to cover.
James Dieter:Yeah. But I
Chris Light:I think also when you bring in fresh perspectives of, people that are outside of us, like, you get an appreciation. So as an example, if I'm a CNA or a DON listening to this, and all of a sudden I'm hearing the struggles of what dietary has or
Kip Kruger:Yeah.
Chris Light:Something completely unrelated to them as a vendor may have. Like, we could bring in a vendor as a Medicaid person may bring in and they they talk about what they're deciding. Because generally we think of like, these are my problems and you're part of my problem. Right? Versus like a Medicaid person may come come in here and be like, this is what we're working through.
Chris Light:And so gaining that kind of like eyes into and appreciate what the person that you're ultimately working with, right, gives you a better appreciation for what's going on, which is one of the things we always try to do at our annual meetings is, like, we bring in people and tell us about what your struggle is so that we can understand and appreciate that when we're interacting with you. You know? And I think this will be a way to do that in a form of, like, for one, for a broader audience. Yeah. So I think it'll be fantastic for us just to learn.
Chris Light:I feel like I'm gonna learn so much. Same. But also, hopefully, for people listening too.
Kip Kruger:Be a part of a solution. Yeah. Yep. That's not that's not often that you see or hear that or anyone's trying to push Yeah. That.
Kip Kruger:And I think from an administrator perspective, that's that's refreshing. They're like, hey. These guys aren't just our vendor or just aren't just a partner. They're a they're a true partner with us. They're they're helping us find solutions Yeah.
Kip Kruger:To our problems too. And how refreshing that is.
James Dieter:I mean, that's what it's gonna take. If we're really going to improve patient outcomes and experiences throughout community, it's gotta be a it's gotta be a group effort.
Kip Kruger:Right.
James Dieter:They're gonna have to come together. And the building can't do it by themselves. The vendors can't do it by themselves. But if everybody comes together, we can get things done.
Chris Light:Yeah. We've seen
James Dieter:that now. Right? I mean, we've actually been able to do some measurements there. We're doing a little bit of research just to start to really quantify Yeah. The amount of impact.
James Dieter:But, you know, when you get together, you work together, and you have good partnerships between vendor and customer and whatnot.
Kip Kruger:I mean, that that's a that's a movement.
James Dieter:Yeah. Well, that's the idea.
Kip Kruger:That's what
James Dieter:we're doing here.
Kip Kruger:It's a movement. It's a movement. You heard
Chris Light:it here first. Our Purpose Summit two thousand twenty seven.
Kip Kruger:Our our purpose movement. I like
Chris Light:it. I like it.
Kip Kruger:Well done. Nicely done. How what do you have anything else to cover? First episode? I feel like it went real I feel
Chris Light:This is introductory. I thought
Kip Kruger:it was good. Perfect. Yeah. It's good. Come on.
Kip Kruger:Tell me. Tell me. No, man. I mean, it's we're
James Dieter:just introductory. We'll get it we'll get into some meat later. It's gonna be fun. Yeah. It's gonna be different.
James Dieter:Real meaty. I wanna get real meaty. I wanna learn a lot. I wanna try to have a lot of discussion about very specific topics that we can go deep, things that people wonder and don't know about. And, you know, I wanna bring in the kind of people that will provide the advice and the information, the instructions to get us where we wanna go.
Chris Light:I will say, my hope is, like, when we get people in what I don't want it to be, I guess, you would say, is, like, very surface level and people who are afraid to share. And so part of the way I think we can help people get there is by being vulnerable ourselves. Yeah. But hopefully, we'll get folks who are willing to kinda share some of the nitty gritty that they're able to share, and it's not all kind of like, you know, shiny bells and whistles. And we can get into kind of real content, you know I like that.
Chris Light:Which I think will be super helpful 100%.
Kip Kruger:If we're
Chris Light:able to get there. Yeah. I mean Yeah. That's certainly to be the goal.
James Dieter:If we don't have really great content that is informative Yeah. And instructional, then I'm gonna be bored and I'm out of here.
Kip Kruger:Yeah. I hope I I hope we can we can shine a light. There we go. Absolutely. I mean, I got a tattoo of a lighthouse.
Kip Kruger:I think that's super important for me for me, prospectively.
James Dieter:Nice. Good. Kip.
Kip Kruger:Thank you. Yeah. I definitely wanna share a light on I was I was able to I think I was able to shine a light on my home whenever I was there. Yeah. And I didn't I haven't been able to do that in a while.
Kip Kruger:So I'm really looking forward to Yeah. Having conversations and really bringing the light back to the nursing home, skilled nursing facility area where we can talk about the good stuff. Absolutely. Awesome.
James Dieter:This is good,
Chris Light:guys. This is fun.
James Dieter:Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Looking forward to
Kip Kruger:hearing This time next week. Something like that.
James Dieter:Won't be in the same country as, like,
Kip Kruger:you won't. Right? Just wanna say thank you all for listening. That was podcast season episode one. Season one.
Kip Kruger:Maybe we can have a lot more. I have two, three, four, five seasons. But this is Our Purpose podcast. I'm Kip Krueger, James Dieter.
Chris Light:Chris Lai.
Kip Kruger:We appreciate you listening. Talk soon.
James Dieter:Thank you.
