The Woodlands Senior Living Turns To Partnerships To Improve Assisted Living, Memory Care

The Woodlands Senior Living is adapting to changing conditions in assisted living and memory care in response to rising resident acuity, turning to community-based partnerships to fuel new growth and improve resident care.

The Waterville, Maine-based senior living provider operates 10 assisted living and memory care communities in the Pine Tree State, along with a subset of independent living neighborhoods. In 2024, Woodlands became the first senior living provider in Maine to receive assisted living accreditation through the Joint Commission due to high standards for safety and care.

In 2026, the provider is weighing how to grow its partnerships with local and regional hospital systems to improve hospital discharge planning as new residents come into assisted living or memory care settings after receiving inpatient treatment, according to Woodlands Chief Operating Officer and Chief Clinical Officer Leann Sebrey.

Also this year, Woodlands is focusing on operating performance improvement, adding a new staff position for quality and compliance with a director of resident and family experience. Sorting through clinical data to help create insights on length of stay, decreased hospitalizations, falls and decreased errors in medication management are also priorities, Sebrey said.

Memory care is evolving in 2026 with younger individuals experiencing dementia and cognitive change, and rising resident acuity has complicated the dementia care environment, Sebrey noted.

“It’s not just someone in their 90s, and so we have to be able to manage all that it takes to meet the next generation in need,” Sebrey said. “We need to be focused on meeting their needs and improving their quality of life.”

The company recently launched its own primary care practice to help improve care coordination and care delivery to residents living at Woodlands communities. With rising acuity impacting assisted living and memory care sectors as older adults wait longer to seek care, Sebrey said having constant and strong communication with health systems will be critical to meeting incoming resident needs.

Recently, the company started building a “hospital time protocol,” where they engage each day with upcoming residents regarding discharge planning and case management.

“[Health systems] are looking for responsiveness, and we work with them when they have issues and need safe, quality secure places to place residents,” Sebrey said. “Our goal is to place people as quickly as four days.”

These changes are in response to rising resident acuity, requiring additional support with the activities of daily living and increased clinical care services.

“We were bringing things in house that we could to keep residents safe,” Sebrey said. “There has to be a continuum and have that be as streamlined as possible to meet the needs of Mainers.”

Serving high acuity residents in assisted living and memory care is a specialty for Woodlands, and the company’s care managers help families and residents through the process, Sebrey added.

Today, health systems are also turning to senior living providers for managing dementia-related clinical care, Sebrey said, with Woodlands partnering with regional health providers to educate staff on dementia care priorities.

Regionally, Woodlands works with MaineHealth and Northern Light Health to identify residents eligible for placement at Woodlands communities due to the overwhelming need for services. For example, Sebrey shared how the hospital systems have over 100 patients that had been at inpatient treatment for over 100 days.

While growth might not be in the form of new acquisitions, Sebrey said Woodlands is looking internally on “maximizing the communities we do have” by focusing on staffing challenges and on operating performance.

“Collaborations and partnerships are really our focus for growth,” Sebrey said.

Incoming residents to independent living segments across Woodlands communities are demanding more wellness offerings, driving the staff to look for partnerships with nearby academic institutions to spur intergenerational programming.

“We want to bring community partners in and that’s really the focus for us going forward,” Sebrey said.

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