Category: Implementing Culture Change

Establishing a Mentor Training Program

One of the most challenging aspects of providing person-centered care is assembling a dedicated, competent, and well-trained team of caregivers. Continuity of care is compromised when there is a high rate of employee turnover; it is detrimental to the well-being of the residents and is a financial burden to the employer. Constant hiring and rehiring degrades the integrity of the staff and diminishes the reputation of a long-term care community. The orientation process for our caregivers is one of the most important investments of time and resources we can make and is absolutely essential to ensure your residents will receive…

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Putting into Action Doing Better Together: Four How-Tos and a Self-Assessment

The blueprint for performance-based outcomes, A Long-Term Care Leader’s Guide to High Performance comes with a downloadable resource that shares how-to guides for four key areas in “attaining or maintaining the highest practicable physical, mental, and psychosocial well-being” of your residents: Three Steps to Transforming the Medication Pass: Individualizing Care and Managing Workflow Rethinking the Use of Position-Change Alarms Eliminating Off-Label Use of Antipsychotics: A 10-Step Guide for Nursing Homes MUSIC & MEMORY℠: Implementation Steps to Maximize Benefits: A Nursing Home Leader’s Guide These are all win-win changes that benefit residents and staff. In this resource, Cathie Brady, David…

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How Senior Living Residents Took on a Thief…and Won

By Jill Vitale-Aussem, MMH, LNHA. Excerpted from Disrupting the Status Quo of Senior Living: A Mindshift (© 2019 Health Professions Press, Inc.) Working in senior living, we focus much of our sales and marketing efforts on telling people what they will receive if they move to our community. Rarely do we ask the questions: What will the older adult bring to this community? How will they make it a better place? It’s an interesting paradox. Our communities are full of knowledgeable, experienced individuals. Many are looking for purpose, but too often we view them as passive recipients of services and…

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High-Performance Leadership: The Business Mandate

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is starting to use reimbursement to influence providers and improve nursing homes’ performance. Under their new regulations, reimbursement will be based on performance, not volume. With their reimbursement policy now aligning with “highest practicable well-being,” it is imperative that you have the people, systems, and processes in place to consistently catch issues early and act to keep residents safe. Here’s what you need to know about this new policy, and how you can be sure you’re meeting the requirements. Portions of this post were excerpted from A Long-Term Care Leader’s Guide…

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It’s Time We Start Talking About Ageism

In this excerpt from her new book, Disrupting the Status Quo of Senior Living: A Mindshift, Jill Vitale-Aussem, President and CEO of The Eden Alternative, takes a serious and critical look at how we view aging. Society has condemned racism, sexism, classicism, and so on. It’s time we condemn ageism as well. We’re All Aging Right now, as you read this sentence, you’re aging. We all are—every minute of every day. In youth, the passing of a day, a month, or a year isn’t viewed as a negative because the passing of time means we’re growing up. And growing up…

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Disrupting the Status Quo of Senior Living

In this interview with President and CEO of The Eden Alternative, Jill Vitale-Aussem discusses senior living, hospitality, ageism, and shifting our perspectives. In your book, Disrupting the Status Quo of Senior Living: A Mindshift, you discuss how the hospitality model in long-term care can actually be detrimental to residents, which many people don’t realize. Why is this? First, I need to explain that hospitality has a role to play in our field. We can learn a lot from hotels and resorts about welcoming guests and visitors. But…

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Developing LGBT-Friendly Communities

The losses associated with moving into a long-term care setting are compounded for the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) population. Older LGBT persons have faced a lifetime of discrimination, many live alone without family support, and most have a distrust of the medical community. These individuals are fearful of the treatment that they may receive in an institutional environment. After struggling to come out and live openly, many LGBT people may choose to return to the closet to avoid discriminatory actions. These fears cannot be alleviated without developing specific policies and educating and training staff to address…

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Getting Started with the Life Story

Respect, trust, humor, support—these are all things we share with our friends. We know our friend’s occupations, marital status, general interests, favorite foods, type of car, hobbies, and other details. We know their family history and traditions, likes and dislikes, even some of their secrets! We also know their strengths and weaknesses and understand their basic personalities. We know how to cheer them up when they are having a bad day, when to give advice (or not), and how to turn a no into a yes. Great dementia care can be rooted in something as simple as friendship. As we…

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Questions that Enrich a Life Story

The Life Story in dementia care is a person’s right to be known and be among people who care. To help ensure that right, you need to learn a lot about the person and incorporate that into your everyday relationship. You can use this knowledge to bring up favorite memories and special achievements, provide cues, and take advantage of past preferences and interests. Life Story information enhances conversations, helps customize activities, allows us to better understand behavior, and helps us redirect with greater success. Play detective when writing a Life Story! Looking beneath the surface can pay many dividends in…

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