CEO Update: What makes CMH’s long-term care feel like home

CEO Update
• 21 May 2025

One of the things that makes Citizens Memorial Hospital and the CMH Foundation really unique is that we have a lot of post-acute services for our patients. For senior living, CMH has long-term care, residential care and independent living facilities.

Continue reading the blog post or watch the video to learn more from Tim Francka, our administrative director of long-term care, about:

• Senior living and long-term care services at CMH
• Long-Term Care Week celebrations
• Creating a home-like environment
• How to connect with CMH long-term care facilities

CMH senior living facilities

Francka: We have one residential care facility, which is Butterfield Residential Care, here in Bolivar. We have six skilled facilities in Ash Grove, Stockton, El Dorado Springs, Bolivar and Buffalo. We also have independent living on five of those campuses.

Calhoun: I have the privilege of seeing health care systems all over the state and sometimes even all over the nation. We have a more diverse offering in this space than anybody else I see. We have over 600 beds for our patients. In the national health care landscape, this transition from the hospital to a long-term care facility can really cause a lot of pain points and delay. But because we have those services, we make it a lot easier for our patients to be able to transfer.

Long-Term Care Week celebrations

Calhoun: During National Long-Term Care Week, our facilities have put a lot of effort into their celebrations.

Francka: It’s amazing what they put together. If you go to our Facebook pages or any of our social media, you will see they have gone all out. What we want to do is make sure that our residents and our staff are able to engage together, have camaraderie, have food and fun and fellowship.

The activity directors are just amazing. They’re creative and put things together, and then they have their teams that help them put all that together and make it come off without a hitch.

Calhoun: They’ve done great work, and when you think about long-term care, maybe the first thing you think about wouldn’t be fun. But they have a lot of fun. When I go and see the staff and the facilities, that’s one of the things I’m most impressed with is how it’s more than a job to them. They really see this as a calling and to make it a home-like environment. I’m impressed by what they’ve done during this Long-Term Care Week. And I’m proud of our staff.

Creating a home-like environment

Calhoun: Talk about what we do to make the facilities more like home.

Francka: One of the first things that we have to make sure is that our residents have choice, and we want families to have choices.

We’re able to do individualized care and make sure that fits with what they’re able to do and what their physician wants them to do, but also to make sure that that is done in a safe manner. We try to really live up to our core values, and safety is our first letter in our core values.

We want to make sure it’s a safe environment, that we’re providing compassionate care and exceptional service. That’s what our staff work on every day, making sure they’re getting great customer service.

Calhoun: And you can tell that. I’ve had loved ones in the long-term care facilities, even though they may not initially have wanted to go, you know, to a facility, we had great experience there with my grandmother. The staff wrapped around her. She loved the activities, and she loved the fellowship that she had with people that she knew.

How to connect with CMH long-term care facilities

Calhoun: How do people with loved ones needing long-term care or skilled nursing services get connected with CMH facilities?

Francka: We have multiple avenues to do that.

• The CMH website has links to direct you on what kind of service you need in long-term care and then who to contact. Complete a 4-minute survey to learn which care options might be best for you or your loved one. Our staff will follow-up to give you more information.
• Go to our facilities and look at them — there’s nothing to replace that. You have to be able to see and make sure it’s the right fit for you.
• We have an admissions team that is on call 24 hours a day at 417-328-6731. They have someone always manning that phone. They can talk you through the level of care you need and what we need to do to get you into one of our long-term care facilities. It could be for a short respite stay, hospice, long-term care or a short rehab stay.

Calhoun: We want this to be the very safest care for our residents, the highest quality and the very best patient experience. We work very hard to deliver that every single day. Thank you for your leadership and your team for all they do.

Michael Calhoun shares the latest happenings at CMH in his monthly CEO Updates. He is the CEO/executive director of CMH and the Citizens Memorial Health Care Foundation.