shAARP Talk: Observations from AARP

my background is nuring home quality inprovement. part of this process must include frequent monitoring by knowledgeable persons not working in the facility. although the facilities attempt their own assessments, a true "snapshot" of problems areas need to be audited by outsiders (naked eyes) at least every 3 to 6 months. my experience has shown that although managers in the facility want to make things better, it is difficult for them to evaluate the effectiveness and outcomes of their own action plans. It is hard for many to admit the program the developed dis not work.
nursing home inspections by the government occur about once a year and for many nursing homes, this is the only audit of care and services.
Regulatgions have been proposed to mandatr each nursing home have external quality of care audits with action plans to address any concerns and follow-up to ensure fixes are maintained for years but have not passed this regulation.

the financial fines only cause nursing homes to spend $$ to fix a cited deficiency but is not proactive in keeping it fixed or preventing other problems.

The true problem with the nursing homes is not that they haven't learned to take proper care of the residents, it is that they don't have the proper amount of staff to do the job properly.
Have you ever tried to take care of 12-13 residents by yourself, change them, do proper oral cares and peri cares. Try to feed 4 patients at one time, it is a tuff job and not everyone is willing to take care of them and that is why they end up in nursing homes.
Give the workers a break, they don't make good wages but are glad to help that resident with what ever they need. Not everyone is willing to do that.

gSZpuP zjkpqcaavdhx, [url=http://dzvzuxjtjkxv.com/]dzvzuxjtjkxv[/url], [link=http://sxagqqyivkha.com/]sxagqqyivkha[/link], http://iadozgcmakoh.com/

In my area, the nursing home/assisted living center that provides the BEST QUALITY of care (adequate staff, good mental and physical care) is a non-profit one run by the Lutheran Church. A friend of mine worked as an administrator in centers owned by big corporations in the same area. She said the in all these, they had meetings where someone from headquarters showed charts and raved about their huge profits, while at the same time, the actual center desperately needed more staff, there were daily and nightly crisis with tears, much neglect of physical and mental care due to not enough money spent in these areas. On the outside, these centers were new, beautiful, fancy to look at. Secondly, a local politician told me that in his home state, I think Minnesota or Michigan or Wisconsin, there used to be a law prohibiting medical care for profit. Look where we have come to! We need to go back to NON-PROFIT nursing homes/medical care.

are you aware that the minimum requirement for training nurse aides in long term care is 75 hours? this includes 37.5 hours in class and 37.5 hours of "hands-on" care
that's less than 2 weeks for those who do most of the direct care in nursing homes (bathing, feeding, dressing, walking, incontinence care, safety, etc) of course, each state can mandate longer training but due to medicare and medicaid cuts, this usually does not happen. To make matters worse, those training the caregivers are credentialed after 2 days of training by their respective state.

the number of licensed nurses in a building is 2-3 on day shift, 1 to 2 on 3-11 shift and 1 on 11-7 shift. add the low wages those with the most direct contact with residents requiring care and it's no wonder there are major and repeat problems in nursing homes