Fire Evacuation on 9/28/20

Submitted by Shoba Neupane-Gautam, DOR, Valley of the Moon, Sonoma, CA
It was Sept. 28, 2020. I was excited to attend my very first annual Therapy Leadership Virtual meeting. As I was working from my home office that morning, I heard from our therapy resource and DOR team that the Santa Rosa area had a bad fire and residents were being evacuated from our sister facility, Summerfield.

I called Summerfield DOR, JB Chua, to offer some help. I realized JB was remaining calm but was disappointed that with the evacuation he may not be able to attend our annual meeting that day. As soon as I heard many residents were being transferred from the Summerfield facility to Broadway Villa Post-Acute, JB and I coordinated with Ensign IT to grant me Summerfield Optima and PCC access.

JB helped evacuate his facility and still arrived at my place around 1:30 pm to attend our virtual meeting together. We both were able to attend the meeting peacefully. As soon as the meeting was over, we coordinated with the nursing/ admission team to identify the residents who were being transferred to Broadway Villa Post-Acute. Then I reached out to my team and requested that they visit those residents, provide them comfort and reassure their safety. After we identified 18 residents who were transferring from Summerfield (SF) to Broadway Villa (BW), we reviewed each and every resident’s needs and coordinated staffing between our two facilities.

Both SF and BW rehab staff were highly cooperative, cohesive and willing to assist residents. As a result, all 18 residents were able to receive skilled rehab services in a timely manner.

Thanks to both home teams’ cooperation, this situation was managed calmly. I was still able to attend all three days of the therapy virtual meeting. I am beyond thankful to my team at Broadway Villa, our therapy resource Jennifer Raymond, the Summerfield Rehab Team and JB’s leadership.