Redefining Elder Care: Building Connection with Dignity and Purpose with Patricia Morrison

**SPEAKER_2** (0:04)
The Bliss Business Podcast, the show about empathy, connection, and consciousness in business. Today's episode is brought to you by Zero Company, your paid search, social media, and programmatic ad experts.

**Stephen Sakach** (0:18)
Welcome back to the show. We're here as always to explore how empathy, connection, purpose transform business from the inside out.
I'm Stephen with my co-hosts, Mike and Tullio today. Hey guys. A little stat here. According to the World Health Organization, the global population over age 60 is expected to double by 2050 Yet more than 40 percent of older adults report feeling lonely or isolated, and that lack of connection has been linked to serious health consequences from depression to cognitive decline. And today's episode is about reimagining elder care as a place of presence, dignity and purpose. Mike, introduce our special guest today.

**Mike Liwski** (1:04)
Oh, Stephen, I'm delighted to. Our guest today is none other than Patricia Morrison. She's the founder and the owner of Social Pulse Home Care Agency, which is a home care agency that provides compassionate, personalized care that's really rooted in human dignity, which we love to focus on and highlight here in our show. Patricia also brings with her decades of leadership and health care and caregiving, along with a deeply personal commitment to treating people as whole human beings. She's here to share how Social Pulse is redefining really what elder care can look like when empathy, love and connection are built into really every layer of the experience. Patricia, we can't wait to hear more. Welcome to our show.

**Patricia Morrison** (2:02)
Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure. I'm excited to hear about what you guys are building and how it emphasize what my passion is. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you.

**Stephen Sakach** (2:14)
Yeah, it's great to have you here, Patricia. I want to talk about what it looks like if we treat elder care as sacred work instead of a service industry. You framed social pulse around the importance of human relationship. Can you take us back to what inspired you to create social pulse and your People First Model?

**Patricia Morrison** (2:36)
Yeah, so I'm actually a registered nurse, and in my decade of nursing, I worked as a traveler in many capacity of services, oncology, ICU, critical care, just a variety of services.
But what I've noticed in the care of nursing is that the socialization piece was missing. I felt like I was just tasking. A lot of us as nurses, we task a lot. So I wanted to incorporate some socialization in something that would allow me to engage with my clients. So I would always be the nurse that would sit in my room and do my documentation. I wouldn't be at the nurse's station. I'm the nurse that would like to chart in the room. Unfortunately, some of the hospitals don't have computers in the room. So it would be a conversation I would have. But I think that can enhance even in the medical world of adding socialization in a hospital setting. And if we had computers, things so. But I would always leave thinking how socialization is missing in health care. And with that thought, I thought about social pulse. I wanted to be the pulse of socialization while we provided care for these Asian adults at home specifically. I worked with Asian population the most, young adults to seniors. And I was really passionate in working with them. Yeah, yeah. And seeing how they were missing that piece when they would come in and get admitted with us.

**Tullio Siragusa** (4:07)
Love that, love that. You know, we live in a time in a society where a lot of people will look at elder care as like a burden and it's very sad. But one thing that stands out about your approach is how you honor the stories of those in your care. What does that look like practically, you know, to make space for someone's full identity in a care setting?

**Patricia Morrison** (4:29)
Oh, I love it. So even as a nurse, as I mentioned, it started there. While I'm in the room with patients and they would tell me their story, right? I would know what got them to that hospital, right? I would know more about that patient than the doctor would because I'm in there sitting with them. So tell me about, you know, what brought you here? You know, what medication, what happened? When you learn that at home, they may have ran out of the medicine, they ran out of finances, this could be contributing factors, but it looks like asking questions and engaging with your person. That's how you get answers, you know. And so that model translates right into Social Pulse. We need to engage, talk with our clients and get to know them. And they personally will tell you their story and you get to know them as a whole list of the folks.