Primaris Press Release
| For immediate release: July 6, 2007 |
Contact: Matt Heger Primaris Communications Department (800) 735-6776, Ext. 136 |
Photos
Donald J. Babb, CEO and Executive Director of Parkview's parent company, Citizens Memorial Healthcare, congratulates Parkview staff at the award ceremony for the Primaris Nursing Home Quality Award on July 6, 2007.
Carolyn Spradlin, center, distributes pins to staff members of Parkview Healthcare Facility at the award ceremony on July 6, 2007, at the nursing home in Bolivar.
This simple plastic trophy was a catalyst for change. This combined with education and culture change led to significant advances in quality of life for residents of Parkview Healthcare Facility in Bolivar, Mo. Photo credit: Matt Heger
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Parkview Healthcare Facility earns Primaris Nursing Home Quality Award:
Honored for outstanding quality of care
BOLIVAR, Mo. — In recognition of care quality and innovative efforts to promote and advance continual improvement, Parkview Healthcare Facility in Bolivar was awarded the prestigious Primaris Nursing Home Quality Award on July 6.
Primaris, a nonprofit health firm, gives the award annually to a single Missouri nursing home for progressive efforts to provide better care of their residents. The winning nursing home must demonstrate improvements in care such as reducing pressure ulcers (bed sores), as well as creative, ongoing efforts to improve.
Parkview, a 78-bed facility in Bolivar, Mo. was designed with a pod-structured floor plan to encourage a less institutional, more community-driven living arrangement for residents. It began to fully live up to this vision in 2005 when staff and administrators began working towards culture change by creating “neighborhoods” composed of up to 30 residents cared for by a team of staff members and a nurse manager.
These culture changes were taken to the next level with the help of Carolyn Spradlin, a nursing home expert from Primaris. Spradlin helped create teams in each neighborhood devoted to reducing falls and high-risk pressure ulcers, assessing and managing pain, and keeping staff consistent in each neighborhood, said Tim Francka, Parkview’s administrative director of long term care.
With these “neighborhood” teams in place, improving quality has become a competition with staff competing for a traveling trophy inscribed “best of the best.”
Team-building activities helped promote buy-in throughout the organization and helped Parkview continue to target its main quality improvement goal – to reduce high-risk pressure ulcers – on multiple fronts. In 2006, education and new protocols were added for staff. Assessments were added to Parkview’s electronic documentation system, allowing care staff to continuously graph the healing process.
One nurse now measures, documents, photographs and reports pressure ulcers on a weekly basis, posting them where the entire staff can see them and track their progress. This is increasing accountability for in-house acquired pressure ulcers across the whole facility.
In a year’s time, high-risk pressure ulcers dropped from 13.33 percent – close to national and state averages – to a scant 3.33 percent. Francka said he attributes this dramatic reduction to culture change more than anything else.
Parkview staff and administrators not only worked with Primaris clinical staff on their quality improvement goals, they integrated them into the facility’s strategic plan in May 2006.
“Culture change and organizational stability are the two cornerstones of quality care. By building communities within their organization and keeping the same staff members assigned to the same residents, Parkview has helped make their nursing home exactly that, a home,” said Deborah Finley, director of nursing home services at Primaris.
“We made it an organization-wide effort,” Francka said. “It [quality data] goes up to our board of directors on a monthly basis. In order to reach the quality indicator, we had to make the culture change.”
Throughout 2006, staff developed plans to phase-in significant changes in regard to resident choice, furthering the community feeling for their residents. For example, a March 2006 staff plan for “Gentle Waking” allows residents choose when they wake and when they eat breakfast. As a response to resident feedback, a flexible lunch was added. The staff plan to further move residents away from institutional schedules “Bathing without a Battle” allows residents to choose the type and time of their bath.
“We don’t say ‘they refused their bath,’” said Kim Tatum, director of nursing. “We say they chose not to have their bath at that time. It’s about viewing things from a different perspective.”
About Primaris
Primaris is a nonprofit, health care consulting firm and contracts with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to serve as the Quality Improvement Organization for Missouri. Primaris’ mission is to improve health care delivery and outcomes by promoting excellence, advancing knowledge and developing innovative solutions for physicians, other providers, businesses, government, patients and consumers.
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Editor’s Note: For explanation of the quality improvement measures and further data, visit Medicare’s Nursing Home Compare Web site at www.medicare.gov/NHCompare/.
MO-07-72-NH July 2007
This material was prepared by Primaris, the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization for Missouri, under contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The contents presented do not necessarily reflect CMS policy.