Jonathon Clayton has been happy to have taken the circuitous route throughout his career because in the end, he arrived where he wanted to be all along; a leader in long-term care. Today he is the executive director of Golden Living Center as well as the Jackson District President for the Tennessee Healthcare Association.
A native of Henderson, Tennessee, Clayton graduated from Chester County High School in 2003 and began classes at Middle Tennessee State University on a pre-dental track, but ended up earning a Bachelor of Business Administration degree with a concentration in finance and economics in 2009. “I was good at math and science so originally I thought I would be a dentist. After shadowing a dentist, I realized it was not for me,” said Clayton. “I took a year off and worked construction and for Federal Express. I went back to MTSU and interned my senior year with Northwestern Mutual. They offered me a position as a financial rep after graduation.”
The job had Clayton traveling to West Tennessee and he quickly realized that while he thought he enjoyed the industry, he was ready to make a change in companies. A client who owned a consulting firm asked him to interview for an IT sales position. “I really knew nothing about IT and wondered why he wanted me to interview but he said they could teach me what I needed to know,” said Clayton. “I ended up getting the job. I built financial tools to help people save money on company wireless packages.”
That led to a position with Dell Inc. as a business consultant for the Carolinas. Clayton said he entered into it not knowing a great deal, but was willing to learn. “I knew just enough to be dangerous and the right people to ask for help,” he said. “While it was a great company it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do. I felt that old tug toward healthcare, like when I considered dental school.”
Following the tug led Clayton to go out on a limb and resign. “My uncle suggested looking into nursing home administration and while I had no idea what that entailed, I gave it some thought,” he said. “A family friend put me in touch with Craig Laman, who works with several nursing home facilities in West Tennessee. I spent time shadowing him to get a feel for what administration would entail. It was quickly apparent that this was what I had been trying to find all along.”
Clayton applied and was accepted into the Administrator in Training Program with Tennessee Health Management, Inc. He started the in-depth program in February 2013 at the company’s flagship facility in Savannah, Tennessee under preceptor Lisa Hogan, who he counts as the greatest influence on how he manages today. Once he completed the program and received the appropriate state and federal licensure, he went to work at one of THM’s facilities in Memphis for a few months followed by a year in Waverly, where he was able to take the facility from two stars to five in resident outcomes and financial improvements.
April 2015 saw him move to Golden Living, a company that operates more than 300 facilities across the country, as a director for their facility in Union City, Tennessee. Golden Living Union City is a skilled nursing facility licensed for 80 beds that offers inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation, speech pathology, physical and occupational therapies as well as partners with several hospice organizations.
Averaging a 75 percent occupancy rate with a high-skilled mix of patients requires a strong leader. Clayton says he is a firm believer in leading by example. One of his favorite quotes from Patton: ‘Do everything you ask of those you command.’ It’s his mantra every day. “I ask my twelve department heads to do the same,” he said. “Watching them evolve, improve and grow is so fulfilling. You also have to build trust and relationships with everyone in the building. It is very important to me to know every resident, employee and family member that visits regularly. It isn’t a job, it is a passion and something I find to be very rewarding.”
Like others in healthcare, long-term care facilities face many changes. In Tennessee, it is the Quality Improvement in Long-Term Services and Supports or QuILTSS that is driving some of the greatest challenges. The TennCare initiative is designed to promote the delivery of high quality, long-term services for TennCare members, including nursing facility services. TennCare intends to create a new payment system for nursing facilities based on performance on various measures.
“The rules basically change each quarter and the dollar assigned to that is based on a number of variables. And it is not just on how you are performing, but some of it is on what you are doing based on the results and the steps you are taking,” said Clayton. “It is incredibly technical with the state still trying to figure out how it all will work. Since we are still in the phase-in stage of the program, there is a lot to learn. Budgeting has become quite a challenge because acuity and quality payments are now made on a quarterly basis. There is so much data that our staff is constantly working on it.”
One resource Clayton finds very important is the Tennessee Health Care Association, for which he is serving as president of the Jackson District. He is also one of only 26 administrators in the state to complete the organization’s future leader program. “I have been a member since early 2013. Initially it was part of my job, but I have found it to be an excellent educational resource for all our personnel,” he said. “It gives us a voice in the legislature. “
Clayton, who was named state senior executive director for Golden Living after only nine months with the company, has been married for two years to his wife, Amanda. They and his stepdaughter enjoy weekends boating on the river around Bath Springs where his grandparents and parents have property.
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