Voices of the Bay: Barrington’s Dianna Shaw

Dianna Shaw was in her last year at college when she came across an internship opportunity at a Boston nursing home. The experience propelled her on a career path working in the senior health care sector. These days the Barrington resident is a senior care advisor and applies her wealth of knowledge from over three decades of experience to an umbrella of services, from health care navigation and assisted living and nursing home guidance to ER advocacy, proactive health, wellness planning, and more. A graduate of Simmons College (now Simmons University) with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and sociology and a master’s degree in dispute resolution/negotiation with a healthcare concentration from UMass Boston, Shaw is chair of the Barrington Senior Services Advisory Committee, which advocates for seniors in the community.

Good Hours: During my last year of college we had to do an internship; it changed my life. There was an index card on a bulletin board that said, “Internship opportunity working in a nursing home 4pm-8pm.” I was like, “Oh, those are good hours,” and I could ride my bicycle. For more than 36 years I’ve been working with seniors, senior-related programs or [with] some sort of gerontology impact.

Relationships: I’m such a relationship person that building relationships with seniors was really just super fun, rewarding, and so genuine. Seniors are known for having no filter, just telling you what they think, right? They really want to reach out and connect, and oftentimes they’re lonely. I had a close relationship with my paternal grandmother. Spending time with her and getting to know those seniors in this nursing home in Boston did it for me.

Resolution: I was the assistant administrator at a nursing home when it went on strike, and all the staff walked out of the building. I couldn’t leave because in a strike situation, an administrator has to be on duty 24/7 so I would sleep on the floor in my office. The contract negotiations for healthcare were so interesting to me that I started taking classes in dispute resolution and negotiation with a healthcare concentration. At the time, managed care was coming into Medicare, and seniors were expected to negotiate and do dispute resolution if they felt like their medical care was denied. Can you imagine seniors with some sort of health issue having to try to negotiate on their own with a managed care company? They have since gotten rid of that.

Accompanied: Whether you’re 18 or 88, you should not go to an emergency room alone. The ER is not typical health care. They triage by acuity [take the sickest people first, not based on what time you show up]; seniors are not always good about advocating for themselves and often have a long list of diagnoses and a long list of medications, and have very limited ability to report accurately on all that.

Barrington Seniors: The Advisory Committee focuses on people over the age of 60. That said, there are people with disabilities who fall into that “needing services” bucket. We advise the Peck Senior Center and also advocate for other services. Barrington tax assessments and tax revenue is a hot topic, especially since the town is doing some school projects like fields and recreation projects, so we advocate for seniors to make sure that they don’t get forgotten. There’s been a lot of work on how we can have some affordable housing for seniors in town. It’s a great committee with some very passionate people. A community needs to be intergenerational to make it a robust town.