Valerie VanBooven RN BSN:

This is Valerie VanBooven with the Senior Care Industry Netcast, where leaders with three or more years of experience share their advice. So let’s get to it. In a few sentences, tell us who you are and what you do.

Dr. Linda Murray: https://best2succeed.com/

Well, thank you Valerie first of all for having me. I’m Linda Murray, from Houston, Texas. I have over 30 years of healthcare experience, some of that time period was in long-term care. I’m currently working in health IT right now as a program lead for a software implementation. I have a doctorate in health administration where I defended my dissertation in 2014. And my research study, which brings me in the arena of health care of long-term care was the qualitative phenomenological study of the deficit reduction act of 2005 and the impact on long-term care. So basically it just focused on that eligibility requirements and the look back period for that eligibility. I’m an author of two books and currently working on my third book. I’m also a notary of the state of Texas.

Valerie VanBooven RN BSN:

Wow. You have done a lot and 2014 isn’t that long ago. So you’ve been very busy. Oh my goodness. That’s awesome. All right. Well, tell us in all of this experience you’ve had, tell us what is the best thing about serving aging adults, their families or just looking into this part of our world and our lives?

Dr. Linda Murray:

Yeah, so we all know that the elderly, that’s probably the most understood and under served population that it is. And it’s the population that we should love the most and deserve the most loving care from us. And so I do love serving them because for the most part, when you remove all the complexity of health care and medicine and the processes, they are pretty simple and they tell you what they need, they know what they want if you listen to them. And so I love them because they deserve our care. And in most cases, like in my family, these same people care for me. And so I have a passion for them because I feel like we owe them. And so that’s why I do enjoy working with them.

Valerie VanBooven RN BSN:

Well you’re right. They do deserve our love and our care because somebody had to feed us and change us and keep us safe and warm and dry. And so now it’s our responsibility, I feel, to give back to those who took good care of us in our lives. You’re so right about that. All right. My next question is about people or organizations who have meant a lot to you in your life. Maybe it’s been a parent or a grandparent. Maybe it’s been an organization out there. Maybe it’s been another person. So who would you like to talk about or what organizations would you like to talk about?

Dr. Linda Murray:

Yeah, so I guess first of all, definitely my parents, my mother, whom I took care of until her demise and everything, but she was a definite influence in my life and just instilled in us to fight for what you want, that success. So she definitely was that person who reinforced, nothing is impossible. You put your best foot forward and work for it and nothing is possible and you definitely can attain that.

Dr. Linda Murray:

And I think I want to just shout out to the healthcare workers. We often say we’re not doctors and nurses, but specifically for me, it was like that EMS driver. Because I do recall, they would have to pick my mother up three times a week, take her to dialysis. And so those people are kind of sometimes overlooked and they go through a lot, coming to those nursing homes, picking them up and bringing them back especially like in the evenings and those healthcare workers that are also in those longterm care facilities, sometimes overlooked. And so just giving a shout out to them. And then those agencies that does like the elder care, [inaudible 00:04:26] is out to help family members when they need someone to support them. So shout out to them.

Valerie VanBooven RN BSN:

Yeah. And I would agree. We haven’t talked much about our first responders, our EMS, our ambulance drivers, our EMTs and paramedics who are first on the scene. They’re first to come to our aid when we need something. And sometimes it’s a routine transfer. It’s just somebody who does the same thing every week. But those folks oftentimes don’t get enough credit for all they do. And sometimes they’re putting themselves in harms way to help us. So it might not be a simple thing. It might be a very tragic or dangerous situation that they’re helping us in and we certainly don’t give them enough credit for the hard work they do because you’re right. Being an EMT, doing those jobs, that is hard work all the time. There’s heavy lifting involved there’s odd hours. And then of course you’re in an emergency, you’re on the highway on the side of the road, trying to help a crash victim and your life is just as much in danger. So thank you for giving those folks a shout out and the rest of our healthcare workers obviously and those CNAs and those home health-aides and the caregivers who maybe they’re not quite registered nurses, but they have the hardest job I think in the facilities and in the home because they’re there all the time.

Dr. Linda Murray:

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Valerie VanBooven RN BSN:

All right. Let’s talk a little bit about online marketing. So you have written some books and you probably have a website which we will put with this video. What has been your experience or thoughts on online marketing?

Dr. Linda Murray:

Everybody knows a couple of things changed. For some of us I think some things remain the same because we did utilize online marketing just to reach out various conferences and seminars and things of that nature. But just to flip that it a little bit for me during this COVID period, what I’ve done is reached out to my family and created a forum that’s called the family communication exchange. What we did was that we reached out to health care experts. So just experts in the family, created a format to where they could come to a platform to where they can come and discuss some of those talks or issues. Some of those is this true or not about COVID? So bring that expert from the family to talk to family members, not only created awareness, but it also created opportunities not only for that healthcare provider, but for [inaudible 00:07:22] the family member may go out of them now feel comfortable, go out to that doctor, to that dentist and also promoted marketing for both sides of it. So we use that platform on this COVID period is to use a family structure, do Zoom video and then post those videos.

Valerie VanBooven RN BSN:

Very nice. That’s a great idea. And so, yeah, I would say if you have healthcare professionals in your own family or if they are someone else that’s willing to come talk to you folks just like we’re doing right now and sort of dispel some of those myths, there’s so much misinformation out there and it’s hard to know who to trust and who to get your… Is it your Facebook friends or is it someone with a degree in science.

Dr. Linda Murray:

Exactly. Yes, exactly. And it’s needed. We have elderly members, a lot of it in my family and I didn’t want them to go out and listen to some myth or something. So we [inaudible 00:08:25] those experts that were already in the family and friends and they invited their colleagues and friends to speak to us. It’s an obsession. And then it created just opening lots of other opportunities that they could get marketing leads and also referrals and that kind of thing.

Valerie VanBooven RN BSN:

Very nice. Great idea for anybody out there. Yeah. Utilize who you know and what you already have right in your own mix of family members. That’s awesome.

Dr. Linda Murray:

Absolutely.

Valerie VanBooven RN BSN:

So cool. All right. What piece advice would you give to senior care providers out there?

Dr. Linda Murray:

Yeah. So I think the first thing for me is to listen. Because a lot of times they speak to us in many languages. It may be verbal, nonverbal. And I think a lot of times we don’t listen enough. And then to act on that, it may be something simple that that person just wants to move closer to the window or they may want to eat on the porch or whatever that may be. It’s just to listen to the elderly. They deserve our ear and allow them to express themselves. And then the next thing I would say is to remember that’s a human inside. And one day we’re going to be that person. And we want someone else to realize that we are human. And so the key word is just to listen to them because they deserve our ear.

Valerie VanBooven RN BSN:

I would agree. Thank you for that good advice. Yes. There’s a human in there and they’ve had an entire lifetime before that moment when you met them. So it’s important to treat them with dignity and respect. If you just met him today, it doesn’t mean that this is the first day of their life. This could be their 100 year of their life or the 80th year or the 90th year. And they’ve got whole lifetime of stories and memories and listening to them is super important. It’s respectful and it’s helpful to them to have a ear. So, all right. When you have a win in life or in business, it could be anything could be in any kind of celebration, how do you, maybe you and your family, how do you guys like to celebrate?

Dr. Linda Murray:

Yeah, it’s funny, one of my chapters in the book is I talk about is celebrate the small things. And I think I don’t do that enough. But what I tend to do, I’d say for me sometimes [inaudible 00:11:01] what the size of the wit it may just be shutting off the computer at five o’clock and go to bed before eight. So sometimes that’s a celebration. But certainly I do like to have spa days where I just sit in a sauna and just digress and just reflect back on the wins. I do have a huge family and we do celebrate together. So just reaching out, going out to sit down hours, talking about the win. And also sometimes I do talk to colleagues and a celebration of same sessions. And we also talk about things that we could have been pulled apart, things that we could have done better. And I guess before COVID, maybe taking a little trip or something of that nature.

Valerie VanBooven RN BSN:

Yeah. Well, hopefully we’ll get back to that really soon. Now that we see two vaccines that are being distributed. I know everybody still needs to be very careful, but we hope that we can start making those road trips and those bigger gatherings. I look forward to that maybe this fall.

Dr. Linda Murray:

Exactly.

Valerie VanBooven RN BSN:

Coming up this coming fall I guess I should say.

Dr. Linda Murray:

Exactly.

Valerie VanBooven RN BSN:

So whenever that happens, we’ll all be more than ready to have a big celebration. I think there’ll be a lot of, it’s over parties.

Dr. Linda Murray:

Exactly. Looking forward to these parties.

Valerie VanBooven RN BSN:

Yeah. So when everybody’s safe. And so thank you for that. And yes, those are great ways to celebrate. So I want to thank you for sharing your wisdom with us on this show and for being here. I appreciate it. You did a great job. Thank you so much.

Dr. Linda Murray:

Thank you so much for having me. Thank you.