Leadership Practices – The HPP Resource Center

Category: Leadership Practices

Leading Change in Memory Care: Commitment to Ongoing Education

I like to point out to people working in senior living that change will not only benefit their residents but also their bottom line. I work with families who are beginning their search for a life-affirming environment for a loved one. On a recent call with a man who had toured four nearby places with his father, he could not answer my question about which one he preferred. “Honestly, I can’t tell them apart. They all promise wonderful things, but I didn’t see [evidence of them] as we toured.” If you can tell the stories of the people’s lives you…

5 Inspiring Stories of Meaningful Person-Centered Memory Care

Small Ways Care Partners Have Improved Quality of Life and Made a Difference This post was excerpted from Getting Dementia Care Right: What’s Not Working and How It Can Change by Anne Ellett, M.S.N., NP. Copyright © 2023 by Health Professions Press. I have had so many meaningful experiences over the years working in memory care. I have worked with countless wonderful support partners and leaders, people who took the time to listen to an individual resident, advocated for him or her, and provided a gentle touch at just the needed moment to improve that person’s day. The following stories…

Inside the 7th Edition of Managing Health Services Organizations and Systems

Managing Health Services Organizations and Systems has served the educational and professional needs of the healthcare field over four decades. The seventh edition furthers that legacy in a completely revised and reorganized text that presents a comprehensive range of the knowledge and skills needed to effectively lead and manage health services delivery. Here is a breakdown of this new edition. The five chapters in Part I, “The Environment,” describe the setting and provide a context for delivery of services. Chapter 1, “Healthcare in the United States,” identifies and describes public and private entities, knowledge about which is the grounding for understanding, organizing, and…

A Mindshift: 14 Terms to Know

What holds us back in transforming senior living? In Disrupting the Status Quo of Senior Living: A Mindshift, author Jill Vitale-Aussem says it is a combination of societal views on aging, the persistence of institutional culture in every level of living, and communities that continue to operate based on processes and policies infused with paternalism, ageism, and antiquated thinking. To truly transform senior living, we need a MINDSHIFT. Here are some critical terms for guiding important new conversations. SENIOR LIVING Congregate living for older people. Includes nursing homes, assisted living, memory support, senior housing, and retirement communities/life plan communities. HOSPITALITY…

Our Devastating Disregard for Elder Care Workers

By Jill Vitale-Aussem, LNHA, MMH, author of Disrupting the Status Quo of Senior Living: A Mindshift This post was originally shared on www.jillvitaleaussem.com and has been re-posted here with permission. View the original post here. I thought perhaps a few of my friends would check out my first blog post, “Nursing Homes Need Support, Not Blame.” To my great surprise, over 144,000 people have read it so far. What that tells me is that our field is in desperate need of validation and support. In the past couple of weeks, negative…

Creating Cultures of Dignity

These days, it feels the whole nation is watching the long-term care communities with an array of emotions: judgement, compassion, sympathy, and sometimes outrage. Living and working under this microscope can weigh heavily on the entire long-term care community. Stress levels begin to run high and relationships among care-partners can become strained. When the outside world makes us feel unworthy of honor and respect, we begin to pass that sentiment on to our teammates and our capacity to build strong relationships begins to diminish. We must look within ourselves and: Believe we matter Know our value Understand our WHY Believe…

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…

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…

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…

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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