“Look closely at the present you are constructing: It should look like the future you are dreaming.”

Alice Walker

Pulitzer Prize Winning Author for The Color Purple, Poet and short story essayist

I like this quote and find it very fitting for our times. It is easy for us right now to feel stuck on a treadmill that never stops.  It’s as if we are in a movie that doesn’t end but repeats the same story over and over. Honestly, there is so much about humankind that this pandemic has tested and while we’ve acknowledged the ongoing heroics shown by so many long term and all health care workers – we might find ourselves drifting toward being numb to the state of things – another wave, another spike, another year – is that possible?

Those of us in skilled nursing care don’t have the option to walk away from our residents or neglect our duties. That includes those at the helm so ably steering our ship.  Focused Care’s senior leadership has remained in fighting mode since March of 2020. Navigating the confusing, uncertain and often treacherous waters for all of us has been our Chief Clinical Officer Becky Anderson, BA, RN, ensuring everyone is trained and informed of all the ever-changing policies and protocols. Lori Strubbe, LNFA, Chief Operating Officer, who fought the swells, tsunamis and every other kind of obstruction to guarantee we have the supplies to protect our team members, residents, their family members and to stay in compliance and avoid penalties. These and many others in our front office are the folks behind the scenes – you can liken them to the Merchant Marines in World War II.  Without the merchant marines, who delivered crucial supplies to our soldiers by ship in unprotected waters, US troops would not have been able to win any of the key battles – they would have fallen to the enemy.  Focused Care’s front office is keeping our ship afloat and giving our frontline care providers what they need to stay in this fight. They are our merchant marines.

Another part of the job of our senior leadership is not only to keep pace with the present but strategize about the future and what that looks like for Focused Care’s mission.  But we can all join them in that exercise.

We may feel as though we are taking an incessant lobbing of grenades without any cover, but I want you to know there is refuge for all of us in giving ourselves time to think about ….”the future you are dreaming.”

For this moment – as we enter a new year – let’s give ourselves time while we are in the present – to think about the future, how we want it to be and be mindful that we can be constructing that future now.

Thank you for bringing us through the past to this present and for being dedicated enough to help bring us forward to better days. Stay hopeful.

Mark McKenzie

CEO and Founder