Florida AHCA Funds IfCE Culture Change Trainings
Statewide Florida Culture Change Symposiums funded by the Florida
Agency for Health Care Administration
Statewide,
FL - The Institute for Caregiver Education conducted four one-day
symposiums for nursing home professionals across the state of Florida. These
conferences were designed for long term care professionals who are interested
in bringing Person-Directed Care (Culture Change) practices to their homes.
This is the first time that an organized effort of this size has taken place
in the state. The symposiums were funded in part by the Florida Agency for
Health Care Administration.
Team members at the Institute for Caregiver Education
responded to a need for Culture Change education in Florida by applying for
and receiving funding from the Florida Agency for Healthcare Administration.
Specifically, the monies come from the state’s Quality of Long-Term Care
Facility Improvement Trust Fund. The fund was created in 2001 to support programs
related to the improvement of care for long term and assisted living residents.
The trust fund monies are a combination of general Florida state revenues and
50 percent of any punitive damages awarded as part of a lawsuit against nursing
homes or related health care facilities in the state.
Teresa McCann, the
Institute’s Senior Consultant and Director of Development in
Florida, alerted the team to the availability of funding for innovative
eldercare programming and activities in January 2007. The Institute
for Caregiver Education
team has been working with a number of eldercare providers in the state
to help them to incorporate Culture Change into their daily practices. Ms. McCann
saw the availability of funding as a way to provide regional free trainings
to providers across Florida.
The Institute has offered Culture Change
training for long term care professionals in Pennsylvania, Texas, Massachusetts,
Connecticut,
Illinois, California, Maine, New York, Arizona, Nevada and Florida. This
is the first time that the team has been given an opportunity to provide
Culture
Change training of this size and scope. In addition, it is also the first
time that the trainings have been offered to attendees free of charge.
The
goal
of the program submitted to Florida AHCA was to provide one-day
Culture Change Symposiums recognized by leading national accrediting
bodies for long term care professionals. The educational content for
each day offered attendees an introductory look at the basic
principles
behind the Culture Change movement. In addition, the program covered
implementation strategies and advanced topics including transformation of dining
and
activities
to a person-directed care approach.
A strategic component of the
funding application was the ability to offer each nursing home provider organization
that attended a set of person-directed care resources to take back
to their organization and put into practice. The Institute specializes
in the creation
of resources designed to assist eldercare providers in transforming
their
model
of care from solely clinical to a social model, (a.k.a. the Culture
Change model of care) now nationally-recognized as a preferred method of
service.
In fact, the transition of eldercare services to a Culture Change
model is supported by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the
American
Health
Care Association and, as evidenced by the funding to the Institute
project, the Agency for Health Care Administration.
Additional funding
for the
Institute’s
Florida Culture Change Symposiums was provided by the Mature Care
Insurance Company, the Westminster Care Community and the Frontline
Foundation.
The
Institute for Caregiver Education’s Person-Directed Care
Symposiums offered training on a variety of care practices designed
and proven
to elevate the quality of life and the quality of care for residents
in nursing home settings. Nursing home professionals
attending these symposiums returned
to their organizations with the foundation knowledge and the
strategic resources necessary to move toward a Person-Directed
Care philosophy, one
which is supported
by CMS and the 8th Scope of Work.
The Culture Change Symposiums held in June included Miami, Orlando, Tampa
and Tallahassee and consisted of five major areas of practice:
These include: Culture Change 101, Making the Business Case for Culture Change,
Person-Directed
Care in the First Year of Implementation, Individualized
Dining, and Community Life
(a.k.a. “Activities”).
“Never
before has the Institute been able to provide
Culture Change education to such a large number of individuals without charging
a registration fee,” says
Teresa McCann, RN, Senior Consultant and Director
of Development for the Institute. “The
Florida Agency for Health Care Administration
was single-handedly be able to extend this crucial
professional development and CEUs to hundreds
of
individuals.”
The
Institute for Caregiver Education is a nationally-recognized
leader in Culture Change education. For more than 15 years the organization
has provided
quality
caregiver education to nursing homes from California
to Maine. Over the last five years the IfCE team has educated hundreds of long-term
care professionals
on a myriad of Culture Change topics at such
national conferences as ASA, NADONA,
AAHSA, AHCA, ACHCA, The Pioneer Network, the
VA Summit and numerous state associations.
The Institute for Caregiver Education
is currently a leading
Culture Change educator
for a number of state QIO organizations as
they work with the 8th Scope of Work and CMS.
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