From the past 1 and half years, our lives have taken a complete turn and things are at standstill. These times have been extremely challenging for everyone across the globe especially for the Healthcare sector.
I am Aditi and I take care of admissions and customer relations for Epoch. I basically act as a liaison between the Client and Epoch starting from the first call till the time the elderly stays with us.
At Epoch Elder Care, we have our elderly residents living in our Assisted Living Homes. Even during these unprecedented times, we know how difficult it must be for children and family members living in different parts of the world to remotely monitor their parents and we felt the urge to help people who were approaching us for any kind of service.
At Epoch, for any admissions we do, there is a lot of thought process and weeks of planning that goes into it. Every individual has different needs and set of requirements and we try to make the transition as comfortable as possible for them.
In the last one year, even during this Covid times, we did admissions from California, Gurgaon, Delhi and Washington DC.
For the elderly who moved from Washington, we received them at the airport and booked a separate quarantine facility where we isolated them for about 5-6 days before we received them in our home, as per our Covid protocol.
Pre-bookings were done, customised food was arranged from our house as per the dietary requirements of the elderly and the family members. We also provided our caregivers with the current care plan of the elderly and made arrangements for them to stay within the same isolation unit.
Before their move in our facility, we customised the room as per the preferences of the family and the elderly.. We are always happy to do it all , it's all about going that extra mile to make them feel at home.
Due to Covid, a lot of families couldn’t come physically to visit us but we arranged whatsapp video tours for them, tried to send as many pictures as possible for the room they chose. In some move-ins we have also got the beds customised, added a small temple in the room, received elderies from their home (in the absence of their children in the same country) , ordered new clothes and treated Covid in-house.
A lot of coordination between all the teams is required for new move-in, whether it is liasioning with the care team for personalised care plan or with the Admin team, to make all the customisations in the room or with the Food Team to make a curated menu as per the dietary needs of the elderly or the care team on ground to make arrangements to receive the elderly in the night at 2am or going all out to surprise them with a small hamper with all essentials.The whole idea is to take care of the entire transition process in the absence of family members and still be able to execute it flawlessly.
Our goal is to extend help to people who are staying in different parts of the world or cities and are planning to move the elderies to Assisted living homes but are not able to do so due to Covid or the long distance.
We as a company understand the kind of stress any family member goes through in these difficult times and the kind of responsibility we have on us as a company. It is of utmost importance to build that trust amongst the families, to be in constant touch for all the little requests and to keep them reassured.
It is just not about the move and that particular day but it is about the faith the family is putting in us and the life-long relation we build from there on. It is about the constant updates and reassurances we provide that help in bridging the gap between the families sitting miles across and their parents. It is the love we receive from the families and our residents that keeps us smiling and motivated.
This is the new normal of the Covid world for us and I believe for others as well. We are constantly learning new things everyday and are constantly striving to make it better for the new families approaching us.
