The VITALS Framework: A New Playbook for Senior Living Leaders

What if the most important metric in senior living isn’t occupancy… but trust?

In this episode of Aspire for More with Erin, Erin sits down with industry leader Meredith Oppenheim to explore a powerful shift happening across senior living.

The conversation moves beyond day-to-day operations and into a bigger question:

What actually drives long-term success in our communities?

Meredith introduces the VITALS Framework—a six-part model designed to help leaders rethink how they approach growth, care, and performance in a rapidly changing industry.

Together, Erin and Meredith connect macro-level strategy with real-life leadership inside the community, showing how trust, systems, and people all work together to create sustainable results.

If you’re a leader who wants to move beyond just “getting by” and start building something truly meaningful, this episode will challenge how you think about leadership, culture, and success.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

•  Why trust is the foundation of every KPI in senior living 
•  The shift from occupancy to outcome-based thinking 
•  How the VITALS Framework can guide leadership decisions 
•  Why staff experience directly impacts resident experience 
•  The connection between culture, consistency, and performance 
•  How to align mission and margin in a changing industry 

Key Takeaway:

If you want better results, you don’t start with numbers. You start with trust.

You can follow Meredith Oppenheim on LinkedIn here

Learn more about the 100% Leader here 

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Transcript

Erin 1:05

Welcome back to another episode of Aspire For More with Erin, where we are gonna talk some really big picture stuff today. A lot of my episodes are very micro, like I'm gonna help you how to think. I'm gonna help you, how to see things differently within the community. But I think it's also important that we start thinking about things from an industry macro perspective, which is why. I brought in a special expert just to do that today, but we are also going to think about what is the really the only metric that matters, that infiltrates through every KPI, every, process, every policy and procedure, everything that your families and your residents, and even your associates want from you. And I believe it's trust. And Meredith Oppenheim believes it's trust, and in fact she believes it's vital. And we're gonna talk about that. So before I bring her on, I want to tell you exactly who she is because it is an honor to have her as a guest on this episode. Meredith Oppenheim has spent over 25 years in the senior housing industry working with owners and operators, and she's been a strong advocate for improving how we think about the future of senior living. She's the founder of Vitality Society, a virtual senior community that's been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal. Forbes and Neighbor Major national Media, and now she's with us on Aspire For More. She's received a US Congressional Award for her work with seniors, served on Mayor Bloomberg's age friendly commission, and contributed to leadership conversations at places like South by Southwest and Harvard Business School. And what I love about Meredith's work is that she brings a different lens. On how to look at what we do every day. She's not talking about operations, she's talking about a human experience, which is trust and connection and how those things actually drive the business. So Meredith, I'm really excited to have you here. Thank you. Thank you for being here.

Meredith 3:19

Thank you, Erin, for this invitation. It's an honor to be here with you today to have this conversation.

Erin 3:24

Yes. We know that the industry's at a flux point. I I, every time I read an article or I see something on LinkedIn, we know that things are shifting because the world around us is shifting. And the flux point, or the flex point, or the transition point really has to do with, to me, I have three lenses that I look through a relationship lens, a real estate lens, and a regulatory lens. And I think it, it comes down to. To trust, but trust that you can do all three of those things. Trust from all, every different angle. But I wanna start off with how you see that from a very big picture perspective. what do you see that, that the transition point is for us as an industry?

Meredith 4:12

Got it. First of all, I love your three Rs. That's fantastic. I tend to look at it, I always say it's healthcare, hospitality, and real estate. Right? Yeah. So very similar. Yeah. Um, and, that, that keeps me grounded is that Venn diagram looking at all three.

Erin 4:28

Mm-hmm.

Meredith 4:28

So. For me, like you, those are the lenses I look through. And then I look at what are the common threads of all of them. Um, and for me, the common thread is we need to innovate on all three dimensions. We need to begin as an industry to think about what. New built environments or how do we improve and enhance the, uh, physical environments that we have? How can we do service better? Trust is the cornerstone of that. and then healthcare, we're at an inflection point. Um, there's no question about it. With so many people getting older, the boomers turning 80 essentially this year. Is, how do we look at healthcare differently? So my co-author, Arnie Whitman and I designed the vitals framework, um, and the vitals framework touches on those three very important spheres. And I know we'll go into each letter, but in, in essence, it was to say we need to innovate. We change is challenging, but it's vitally important. So we called it the vitals framework and it has been well received by the industry because I do think we're at a point of time where we know we can continue to do what we've always done. We've gotta do even better and more. So let's help the industry change and evolve and improve, and that's what we intended to do.

Erin 5:53

I love the words better and more. I feel like it for a while, those words really gave me a very negative energy about them. Not necessarily better because we always wanna get better, but if we never feel enough, which to me, the unrelenting pressure of the real estate side of things. You know how much it took to even get this and now this isn't enough. Right? And we have to keep going. Like better and more can become very negative energy words. And to me, to combat that is growth, right? I'm enough, I wanna grow so I can get better so I can. Create more, right? So I can welcome more. The only way to your point, to welcome more residents in is to get better with our systems within.

Meredith 6:46

Absolutely. It's so interesting that better and more. I had never thought of it that way. Erin, thank you for alerting me to that. It has the connotations like a human, that you're not enough or we don't do enough. And I'm glad you're highlighting that because it is truly remarkable what this industry does do today. There's no question about it that residents we serve, the families we serve, the staff that we employ, we're doing the most remarkable work. In fact, I remember very well when, I worked for Marriott Senior Living. That was my first experience in senior housing, and we prepared that portfolio to be sold. I remember it was sold to Sunrise, so I ended up at Sunrise Corporate. There were many of us that ended up going from one corporate office to another. And I, as I was leaving sunrise years later, my mother was not well, and I wanted to come closer to home. I remember asking him like, what is your perspective? Um, Paul Clawson, the founder of Sunrise on Technology. I was just curious, like in the better and more lane, like how he looked at. Technology, and this was 2004. So it was very early as it relates to what technology does today and what has, how it's changed and impact the industry. And he said, Meredith, you should never lose sight of at the very best we are surrogate daughters. And I thought to myself, that is so profound, right? So even if we are thinking about how to do better, how to do more, we have to be grounded in that we're doing the daughter's work. Not because they don't wanna do it necessarily, or they can't do it, but we should be taking care of these resident. In ways that are comparable to what an adult daughter would do on the best of days. And, that has always given me a very resident centered approach that all that I think about in terms of innovating in this industry has to be good for the resident. Yet that being said, my Marriott training taught me one very important point, Erin, which I know resonates with you too, that in order to, for the business to do well, it starts with the staff. You have to treat your staff well. When you treat your staff well, they treat your customers and our case residents and then the business will do well. You have to start, you have to start with the staff and that's why people move in. We're the surrogate daughters. We're doing the work that is so needed to take care of loved ones.

Erin 9:13

It's very true, and I think. From a macro standpoint, from a real big picture standpoint, the challenge that Marriott didn't have that we do, which I guess maybe they did whenever they had a community, was that the customer stays there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, and so it becomes vitally important. That we do understand how to treat our teams in a way consistently that will then influence them to treat their residents consistently the same way, because they're coming in the same restaurant every day, three days, three times a day. You know? So there's that element that a Marriott hotel might not have had, but the Marriott Senior living had, and that's a unique point.

Meredith 10:09

Oh, you nailed it.

Erin 10:11

You

Meredith 10:11

nailed it. So there's a reason they exited the business. Yeah. It's so much harder than the hotel business. I wish they knew you before they began this. So they entered the business. They were able to develop, they were able to open, they were able to operate. But there it was an element of risk. That came with exactly what you beautifully said. The 24 7, 365 people aren't leaving. Average state, you know, in a hotel design for business travelers too nice is an example.

Erin 10:47

Mm-hmm.

Meredith 10:48

Right? People could stay. Now we know like two and a half years, so our margin for error is so great, but then when you're taking care of older people later in life, there's virtually none. that risk reward for Marriott was very clear. There was tremendous exposure to the brand, what the brand stood for, right? To have a portfolio like senior housing and then the risks associated with being in the business of senior housing far outweighed what we were making for the business. uh, they decided to sell. And that was a long time ago. That was in the early two thousands. Um, and it was different when we got to Sunrise. It was an entire organization that organically grew out of senior care. Their operations and their infrastructure and their systems were much more robust. Even for a big player like ours. We were a smaller division and a larger company. So I was glad to be at a pure play, um, and see how they absorbed our portfolio and we integrated their systems and processes, which reminded me how important it is to get that right so that we could do our best work day in and day out.

Erin 11:57

Yeah. Yeah. But that was fun and interesting to, to see how that, that, that worked. So you created to me something that I learned, like I learned about you through the vitals framework and I thought she gets it. That's what I thought when I read that article. Like she gets it. Thank you. I wanna talk to her. Um, thank you.'cause my career has been inside of the community. And I operated very, very differently than the norm. I viewed my work as a mission field and I viewed my work as, when I take care of my people, more people will come. And they did. Mm-hmm. In every community I was a part of, was underperforming and we brought it up to 100%. One community didn't get to a hundred percent, but we were on average, like 95 to 98% while I was there. So I have this history of turning around problematic communities and it all starts with relationships. For me, it was a calling, it was a passion. and those things they sell, they just sell. I didn't always have the language for it. It was all organic. I couldn't necessarily explain things. I can do that much better now. So when I read what you created, it comes

Meredith 13:17

naturally to you.

Erin 13:18

Yes. Yes. When I read what you created, I was like, what? I get that. So I want, I want you to be able to talk about it and, and really describe what it is, what your thoughts are and, and from the big picture perspective.

Meredith 13:38

Absolutely. So first and foremost, I wanna acknowledge leaders like you, right? The results that you talk about seems so easy. Yeah. But Erin, I know. Um, having been involved with asset managing and doing strategic work across the country and very large portfolios, our success is only possible when you have great leadership in the building. Yeah, it's true. Everything else falls apart when you don't. And, um, I salute you because you make it sound so easy. But it is so hard. And so that goes back to the theme of change. As I said earlier, change is challenging. But the genesis of this framework all started with the idea that we're heading into a phase of, the industry where ideally we could see unprecedented growth. And so as an industry, we've always attracted like 10 to 11% of the population, which essentially means that 90% of the people we don't their lives, we have no impact on their health and wellbeing, but we could and we should. So I thought to myself. Not only does the industry need to change, but government is starting to understand that we are a highly reputable place for older people to stay well. And now there's a number of programs where senior housing to participate and get dollars to do the work we've always done, which is really exciting as well. But we have to ready ourselves to be able to qualify for that. And then the other piece of the genesis of this is part of the slowdown of progress for our industry is the friction that exists between owners and operators and mission and margin.

Erin 15:29

Mm-hmm.

Meredith 15:29

So we need to get that equilibrium right. I spend most of my career on the for-profit side, which let's just be clear, it's a little bit slanted towards margin and what.

Erin 15:40

What should we say that

Meredith 15:43

right? And now I work as a strategic advisor, to the CEO of one of the large nonprofits on the, in the Northeast. And there's no question about it. When you talk to the leadership of the organization, they lean towards the mission. That being said, even them say no margin, no mission. So no matter what we do on either the for-profit or non-for-profit or decide the business has to work, otherwise we can't work and deliver the mission. So the Vitos framework is six letters, is V-I-T-A-L-S. Each one of them stands for something unique and different. So I'll do a very high overview and then we'll dig into some of them as you see fit. So V is this emphasis on value. V is value, right? How do we shift our mindset from occupancy heads and beds, which is you often hear about to outcomes. How do we move, people along to have optimal. Experience where their health improves as a function of being part of our communities. So the government wants to see that, right? Value-based outcomes. We as an industry should and could be instrumental in achieving that value for and with the residents. Honing in on outcomes, how much healthier and better are they by living with us, engaging with us, eating with us, than they otherwise would. the second is inclusivity I for inclusive. Our industry has become extraordinarily expensive. And there are many reasons for that, The cost of construction, the cost of supplies, the cost of labor, everything, all the prices are growing up, and again, that equilibrium between mission and margin makes it such that in many markets, particularly where I live in New York City, the cost to live in these communities becomes prohibitively expensive. So in 2004, when I worked for Bentos, like the highest priced units for independent assisted living in our market was like 12,500. And now the floor is at twice that 25,000, you know about. Let's just be clear, that was 2004, sorry, not 2004. It was 2014, so just over 10 years later it went from 12,000 to 24,000. That's insane in terms of increase in price, so we become unaffordable and unattainable to most people. The mass market, um, that's expected to grow the most and represent the biggest population is one that is too wealthy. For affordable housing, right? The dual eligible HUD financed communities, they don't qualify, but they also can't afford the market rate communities often in most markets. So we need a middle market. Solution so we can serve more people, and have the impact we wanna have. for more people that we'd like to. Serve T is trust. We talked about that. It's the cornerstone of our success. It starts with the staffing. We lost considerable trust during and after COVID. We need to restore that. It's the basis of why people trust us to move in is knowing that we will consistently deliver what we say we're gonna do. We've gotta do what we say and say what we do. I mean, we just need to be consistent. And you cannot be consistent unless you have a staff that you can trust that are trained, thoughtfully, supervise thoughtfully. So trust is the cornerstone of our success. And then a is agency. So we are serving a population that we have really not seen so much before other than in the adult child role. The boomers.

Erin 19:31

Mm-hmm.

Meredith 19:31

And the boomers, as we know, need and want to change the shape. Pretty much everything, every generation that they have been through in their lives. And so it behooves us to start to think about what we do differently. I see this as those who reside with us aren't just consumers. Of what we do, they should be contributors and creators of what we do. And that takes a very different shape and form than I'm on the receiving side of everything versus contributing to the environment that I live in to make it the place that I want it to be and where others like me wanna be, and stay. And then L is longevity. I started a platform, as you alluded to in my bio, called Vitality Society. It launched January, 2020 right before the pandemic, and it was all oriented towards vitality. I wanted to help people live longer and better lives. The longevity business is. Multi-trillion, right? And as an industry, when we do what we intend to do, which is to keep people well and comfortable for as long as possible, longevity. Is, it is a real potential outcome of what the work we do could provide and this emphasis on helping people live those longer lives, right? Staying healthier, longer, ensuring they eat, ensuring they move. Those are the desires and the outcome is longevity. And then the last one s is systems. For us to be effective and impactful in all other facets of innovation that I just discussed. We need good systems. We need good processes, we need good data. As my co-author likes to say, data is the currency. Once we know who we're serving, how and what they need. Then we could deliver. And when we measure that, and we have systems to measure that, whether it be how often people participate, what they eat, how and when loved ones come to visit them or not at all, once we capture really good data. The Ritz-Carlton whole service model is based on this, we can provide better service and support. Mm-hmm. And so really having good systems in place allows us to innovate more thoughtfully and be more successful in achieving the outcomes we're aiming to achieve. Um, and that's where the whole system, no pun intended, works beautifully together.

Erin 22:12

Mm-hmm.

Meredith 22:12

so I. I, um, the playbook, like I said, was very well received. I think the industry needed some guardrails, but also some directions of where are we really aiming and how do we think of it thoughtfully and comprehensively.

Erin 22:29

Yeah, I think, I think of it from a, um, you're a macro thinker. I'm a micro thinker who's learning how to be a macro thinker.

Meredith 22:38

Trust me. You don't want me in the micro, my colleagues that work with me when I get in the micro, you know, I'm like, I gotta stay in my lane because I can get too detailed. Too demanding. Yes. Yes. Because I, I can't help but see where we're headed, but I can't. As a former operator of my, in terms of my own life and what it entails, like, you know, I got, I gotta stay in my lane, you know? Yes. But yes, it all comes down to the micro. If we, if we don't do it well, day in and day out and task by task, none of this is possible.

Erin 23:09

I think like one word that comes to mind, well, there's several that come to mind, but if you really wanna like, connect better and more and trust. Consistency, it's energy and I think the industry, when we look at the burnout and, and the retention rates and then all the innovation that's going on, we are trying to do a lot. And because we're trying to do a lot, we're really not doing anything well. And so our energy burns out confused. Yes it is. And so to me the that framework is like, okay, if we can focus our energy in these areas and then get a little more micro to it, then all of a sudden we're working. Forward progress. We're creating momentum and the systems will do it. Like I, I really like systems and I think like inside of community, I think about meetings. The meetings that we have and the way we run them and the intentionality with them is the system that generates from everything else. You can build trust in these meetings. You can make sure you meet. Every kind of customer experience metric in this meetings because you're talking about them and now all of a sudden our energy is being used appropriately. And when you talk about value, inclusivity, trust, agency, longevity and systems, like you can really talk about all that in meetings. You can really like if you focus your energy appropriately in these areas. You do create momentum, which makes everything easier from an energy

Meredith 24:54

perspective. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of the communities I worked with, and a lot of the companies, they do like the daily standup.

Erin 25:02

Yes.

Meredith 25:03

Right. And that's where they have a chance to say, well, how is, you know, Mrs. Smith. You know, and this is kind of like a fun little scorecard too, Erin, like for value, you know, value, how's she feeling is now come, how's she doing? Right. Inclusive, is it, you know, right now, you know, financially speaking is how I've looked at it. so maybe it's not as relevant and important, but it is because a lot of the residents run outta money, right? You hear it all the time. Mm-hmm. You know, this woman can't keep up with the care increases. What are we gonna do? We are, essentially providing a higher level of care than this family can pay. that is the inclusive question. How do we not leave ourselves exposed or this resident being under cared for and the family underwhelmed, but at the same side, how do we get that void that creep? Because that really dilutes our margin and then we can't do anything for anyone. And then like the trust piece of it is, yeah. Who's caring for her? Who's on, who's on this shift? You know, let's just make sure that, you know, she comes to the activities so we can help her mentally feel better. if we get her out in the room to do more, you know, an agency is like, well, how can she, how can that president contribute? You know, how can we get her involved? A committee with this resident. and the longevity piece of it is really important, which is to like, how can she live those best days and enjoy her best life? You know, what are we doing for that? Can't just get by. You gotta get ahead. Right? We all want to.

Erin 26:37

Mm-hmm.

Meredith 26:37

And then the s is like, wait, have you looked at the data? Are we collecting the data? You know, when was like you, we were talking about earlier, higher to the podcast, like, the care plan says this, it's in the system. Are we delivering on that consistently?

Erin 26:51

Like

Meredith 26:52

it's not, the systems have fallen apart and we're not working on her behalf. So I see this as almost like a scorecard and is a great tool. Um, I also see it, I get contacted quite a bit by people who wanna be in the industry and they don't know where to start or begin. And I wanted to illuminate that because it could be overwhelming if you are like, let's just say the CEO or executive director and you have to think on all these dimensions, but we're lucky'cause we have departments. So the value is the care staff.

Erin 27:23

Mm-hmm.

Meredith 27:23

Right? I inclusivity might be the care staff, or if you're developing and finding markets, maybe it's the development team, if you have one. Mm-hmm. And trust is very operational, right? Mm-hmm. That starts with hiring and firing and the HR and the executive directors and agency as your programming staff, you know, getting people involved and engaged. so that's the point, right, is to start to think of who are the departments that are, what are the departments that are responsible, and who are the people that can help move this agenda? It's not realistic. Do all this day in and day out, right? You need to lean in on the staff, and that's when these buildings work best. When you have these department heads and departments that deliver consistently, you need and want that this is not a one man or one woman show.

Erin 28:07

Yeah, I, I think it is a framework that will engage both the head and the heart, because even the most head oriented leader can operationalize trust. Can operationalize value, or at least pull that key. If you're inside the community, the co, the director or the the, management company director over that, over that department. Like you can literally pull them in and be like, okay, how are we building trust? How are we valuing the right, you know, like you really can't operationalize these things and if we don't do it. We are going to lose a lot of people to a community that will,

Meredith 28:57

that's right. That's right.

Erin 29:00

I, that's

Meredith 29:00

right.

Erin 29:01

One of my favorite stories, one of the, the one of the most proud I've ever been is that I took a, a community that had a really bad state survey. There was a 57 on the wall. The memory care apartments, you know, for Alabama, maybe for New York. This isn't, I don't know, but it worked. Oh, thats pretty bad

Meredith 29:19

wherever you are.

Erin 29:20

Yeah. Yes. But the apartment sizes were 300 less than 300 square feet, which

Meredith 29:26

Wow.

Erin 29:26

Is really small for my neck of the woods. and so it was a double, double negative everywhere we went. Why would I wanna live here because of the bad survey and then. And these apartments are so small, and the way through that was, if you look at it, if I, if I look at it through the lens of your framework, it was because now's the best time to move in because I'm gonna know everything about your family member because I'm not the leader who. Was here when that happened. But I am the leader who has to ensure that that doesn't happen again, and here's what we're doing to ensure that it doesn't, I love it. So the only way to, I have

Meredith 30:15

goosebumps, Erin. I

Erin 30:16

love it. Yeah. is through, the only way is through, yes, these are small apartments, but they were built this way on purpose. the only way. Anything is through, and that that's how you operationalize this framework. It's like, we care.

Meredith 30:31

we care. I love that. Yes. You and I bonded quickly because we do look at this industry with all of our head and heart into this. I believe that what we do and how we do it has to be good enough. If it were my own grandmother, if it were my own mother. Myself, myself, you know, now that I'm 52, I started doing this when I wasn't even 30. And I worked with seniors when I was in high school. That's where my passion was ignited. I had no idea when I volunteered, to cook its senior centers, but it's my passion would become my profession. And decades later, I still sit here so energized. But there's a theme in my work I always felt. I had a very resident or senior centered approach. I felt like I could pour my heart and my head to help improve the quality of people's lives. That has been a through line, and it's why I joined Mayor Bloomberg's commission. It's why I sat in the New York City Department for Aging. It's how I earned my Congressional award. Seniors are often overlooked. And when you meet people like us, and there are many of them that love this work and connect with both your head and your heart, I can't imagine myself doing anything better.

Erin 31:49

Yeah.

Meredith 31:50

the Dean, not the dean, there's a president of Cornell when I graduated, my mom always loves to say this line. He was a very, Very scholarly British man, and he said, many of you graduates will be lucky to get a job. Some of you will be luckier to have a career, but the luckiest of all will have a calling.

Erin 32:11

Yeah.

Meredith 32:12

And that's what I have and that's why I do what I do. I feel like people like you, people like me, this is our calling.

Erin 32:19

Yeah. It's true. I think you made a comment and it made me think about this and it is a calling and I think that's the difference. Those communities and those companies that will embrace the calling will grow quicker, but I think one of the reasons why we're at this point of transition that is so sharp is. The silent generation and the greatest generation allowed things as is, right? Yes. Like the World War II generation. Men, they survive depression. They, right. Gimme a cot. I'll sleep wherever. Give me a warm meal and a cot and I'll be happy. the women, maybe not so much, but they weren't too far off from that. Um, by the way, the people who were born in the twenties were the most stubborn. Generation of residents I have ever dealt with. My grandmother was one of them, and she lived in my community and I was like, you fit the mill woman. You fit the mill. But the boomer generation, like you said, has exploded the door open and changed things we're here. We're here.

Meredith 33:37

Right.

Erin 33:38

This is where, to me, the head and the heart leaders are going to get to shine. And I am. I am thankful that you get to have your voice out there and you get to say, here's six areas if you operationalize them, that will make your ROI go through the roof and you are right.

Meredith 33:57

That's right.

Erin 33:58

You are right. So

Meredith 34:00

That's right. And I am grounded in, I went to Harvard for my MBA. Mm-hmm. So that is arguably the west point of capitalism. I worked for one of the largest REITs in the industry. I was responsible for R-O-I-N-O-I, as we called it, growth of the shop, the senior housing operating portfolio to every bottom to the bottom line, and showing that growth quarter over quarter, exceeding expectations and what they set as goals and targets for Wall Street. I've lived in that pressure. Mm-hmm. But I always come back to this kind of structure that if we don't do. What we intend to do. Well, the numbers aren't gonna follow.

Erin 34:47

No,

Meredith 34:47

they just don't. They won't. And, it's always, I had 66 communities when I was at Bentos, the highest performing executive directors when they assessed them towards, not just, how they perform day in and day out, but relative to the goals that were set for how they were expected to perform. When those executive directors were the highest performing, the buildings always did well.

Erin 35:11

Yeah.

Meredith 35:12

There were so many times where we'd replaced an executive director, wasn't a good fit, and we still faced the same challenge again. It wasn't a good fit. So this churn of leadership, not getting the stars like you Erin, right? Mm-hmm. Not so easy to be an executive director of building. In fact, I think I failed miserably, right? You have to do everything well. Every piece of this framework, right? You've gotta do the care. You need to know the business. You need to care for the families. You need to get the residents, you know, the staffing, right? every facet in and of itself is so complicated and they need to do it well, all the time, everyone. It is not easy. But when those executive directors that I've met perform at the highest level, they make it look easy.

Erin 35:56

Yes.

Meredith 35:56

They make it look easy.

Erin 35:58

Yes. yes. So I. It's not easy, but it is simple. Care, trust, do what you say you're gonna do, and pay attention to the vitals. The vitals. Pay attention

Meredith 36:13

to the vitals, the heartbeat of the community. Right? That was the thought. It's a play on a lot of words, but it was,

Erin 36:18

I

Meredith 36:18

love that the vital, the framework is vital for the future of the industry. It's vital for the residents to be cared for in a certain way. Staff, right? And like the heartbeat of what we do in keeping our industry alive and moving forward. is the health of the industry, is it really good? Is it sufficient? I think, listen, you raised it before. Could we do what we've always done for the silent and the war generation and get by? I think we can only because Erin demographically and as an industry, we're not building fast enough. We're now growing enough. So even if we don't improve and the status quo, the buildings will perform from an occupancy level at a higher level because there's just not gonna be enough supply growth

Erin 37:06

right

Meredith 37:06

to account for the number of people that are coming. So I think we could get by. But why? Why try to make people who would otherwise need and want something different accept what we've always done? Because it's not necessarily a good fit, and when it's not a good fit. Very hard for residents to be satisfied. Yes. And when residents aren't satisfied, the culture of the community isn't great. It's very hard to work in. If staff doesn't wanna be there because the residents are unhappy, then you have staff churn and burn.

Erin 37:39

Mm-hmm.

Meredith 37:40

And so you have unhappy residents that lead to unhappy staff and then unhappy results. Yeah. And so like you really do need to think about. That alignment. And that's kind of what we intended to do. Like how do you align this next generation coming? We need to want something different. And as an industry, we shouldn't be satisfied with the status quo. We just shouldn't.

Erin 37:59

Yeah. Well, I love this episode. Thank you so much for giving us this overview picture and for those head and heart leaders listening, hope that this is coming. Hope is very, very important. And I believe, I mean, I obviously am a developer of leaders. Um. I believe when you invest in your leaders in a way that multiplies their influence, that growth is the priority. That being able to pay attention to the vitals is a lot easier. So you just proved my point. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Meredith 38:35

most importantly, thank you for this opportunity and thank you for the most important work you do because supporting the Leaders is. Is the linchpin of our industry success. Yeah, it's, thank you.

Erin 38:47

So if people want more information about you, what you're doing, the vitals framework, how do we find that?

Meredith 38:54

Sure. So I would suggest going to meredith oppenheim.com. I see the spelling is here. so if you go there, the vitals framework is under publications, so you can download it there for free. you can also contact me through there, and then I am also on LinkedIn. I love Erin using the LinkedIn platform to give Pieces of the vital framework mm-hmm. Through perspectives on a regular basis. Like, um, sometimes I'll say, you know, this is like the I moment or the L opportunity, you know? Mm-hmm. get the letters invested in, in, in the investing a little bit more in the lingo we've established. But at the very least I try to give those head heart stories, to really elevate people's thinking. And once you elevate people's thinking, the best leaders out there will make change happen. Yes,

Erin 39:48

yes. Thank

Meredith 39:50

you.

Erin 39:50

Yes, I agree

Meredith 39:51

with that.

Erin 39:52

thank you so much for being here and as for always my listeners, especially when we talked about more and better today, I want you to always aspire for more for you knowing that you are enough. Have a great day. Yes,

Meredith 40:09

thank you.