FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June, 2007

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 was the first time that an organized effort of this size took 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 that would be recognized by leading national accrediting bodies for long term care professionals. The educational content for each day was designed to offer 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 that are designed and proven to elevate the quality of life and the quality of care for residents in nursing home settings. Nursing home professionals who attended 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 were held in Miami, Orlando, Tampa/St. Petersburg and Tallahassee and consisted of five major areas of practice including: 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,” said Teresa McCann, RN, Senior Consultant and Director of Development for the Institute. “The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration was single-handedly 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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