UPDATE Weekly

Make plans today to join your colleagues for the third annual NCHCFA Summer Symposium. The three-day event will be August 5-7, 2014 at the Embassy Suites Resort at Kingston Plantation, Myrtle Beach, SC. Call the Embassy Suites Resort at (800) 876-0010 to reserve your overnight room. Use group code “NHF” to identify yourself as a NC Health Care Facilities Association Convention attendee! To make your reservation on-line, visit http://tinyurl.com/2014symposiumreserve.

Please note that when our room block is full, rooms will be on a first come, first served basis at prevailing published rates. Please call the Association office at (919) 782-3827 with any questions. Brochures will be mailed to members in June!

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On April 16, 2014, The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published a proposal to revise the edition of the Life Safety Code (LSC) referenced in Requirements, Conditions of Participation and Conditions for Coverage for long term care facilities, hospitals, critical access hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers, hospices that provide inpatient services, religious non-medical health care institutions, and programs of all-inclusive care for the elderly facilities. The proposal would eliminate references to all earlier editions of the LSC. CMS also proposes to adopt the 2012 edition of the Health Care Facilities Code, NFPA 99, with some exceptions.

The proposed rule may be viewed at: https://federalregister.gov/a/2014-08602, which provides details on how to submit comments. Public comments are due no later than June 16, 2014.

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The 65th Annual AHCA/NCAL Convention & Expo registration is NOW OPEN! Early Bird deadline is July 18th! This year’s convention will offer you the opportunity to deepen your professional knowledge, network with colleagues from across the country, spend time in the Expo Hall discovering new business solutions, and even rock out a little. This is the must-attend event for long term and post-acute care professionals. Register today and take advantage of the lowest registration rates available! Click here to register now!

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The Certificate of Need (CON) Section appreciates the responses received to its Customer Service Survey sent out in December 2013. In response to the comments and suggestions, the following changes have been implemented:

• Beginning with the review cycle starting February 1, 2014, the applicant may submit the copy of a CON application on a CD or DVD in lieu of a paper copy. The original application, including exhibits, must be printed and submitted as a “hard copy”. If the applicant chooses to submit the copy on a CD or DVD, the entire application must be included on the disk(s). The application itself should be in Microsoft Word while the exhibits may be in Word, Microsoft Excel or PDF. No more than one application, including exhibits, may be saved onto the disk.
• Progress Reports may now be submitted electronically. They should be e-mailed to the Project Analyst who monitors the territory in which the project is located. The Processing Assistant for that territory should be copied in the e-mail.
• The Section is developing a process by which written comments can be submitted electronically. To assure the Section’s timely receipt and acknowledgement of the comments, the proper process must in place prior to accepting them electronically. It is hoped the process will be in place in the near future.

Other suggestions and comments are being reviewed for possible future implementation.

General information related to Certificate of Need, Decisions and Findings, No Reviews and Exemptions, and Written Comments are available on the NC Division of Health Service Regulation Web site at http://www.ncdhhs.gov/dhsr/coneed/index.html. Project Analyst county assignments and contact information can be found at http://www.ncdhhs.gov/dhsr/coneed/staff.html. Also, a copy of the 2014 State Medical Facilities Plan can be found at http://www.ncdhhs.gov/dhsr/ncsmfp/2014/2014smfp.pdf.

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National Nursing Home Week® (NNHW), which begins on Mother’s Day, May 11 and ends May 17, 2014, is a special week in the year. This year’s theme revolves around the “Aloha Spirit” from the Hawaiian culture — it encompasses the qualities of being patient, kind, respectful, and compassionate. We hope you will join others during this week to honor and entertain everyone you serve, and the staffs that care for them! This special attention will make for a remarkable week, especially if you order NNHW-themed gear to spice up the festivities. Visit Facebook (http://www.Facebook.com/NursingHomeWeek). Be sure to post your favorite pictures to the Facebook page so others can enjoy your fun and creativity

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At North Carolina Health Care Facilities Association, we recognize how important it is for our members to keep up-to-date on the most innovative training methods. We also realize the importance of offering you opportunities to make a difference in your ongoing quality efforts.

Therefore, we are offering a train-the-trainer program utilizing FutureCare NC’s human patient simulator. Nurse Educator, Mandy Richards, RN, MSN, will use a state of the art human patient simulator that displays real time patient diagnostics and disease symptomology. This seminar offers a one-time “train-the-trainer” human patient simulator session to member facilities and corporations. Simulation based learning curriculum helps train staff using scenarios ranging from SBAR communication practices, clinical skills and assessment enhancement to medication errors and pneumonia identification. The session is designed to highlight the benefits a facility may achieve through the use of human patient simulator learning which focuses on the interactions and communication among nursing teams.

This will be an all-day training. Facilities and corporations will be able to register teams with 3 or 4 members with a maximum of 60 seats available. Teams must, at a minimum, include a RN (the person identified as responsible with facility implementation), one Nurse Aide, and one LPN. These groupings may also be composed of teams assigned by multi-facility management.

This seminar will be offered in Raleigh on June 4th.

Brochures will be mailed this week!

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This training module will provide an overview about Medicare basics, provider enrollment and claim submissions. Click here to view.

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This three-part DVD training series includes must-have background information for feeding assistants (Getting Started, 20 minutes), specific job responsibilities and procedures (Proper Feeding Techniques, 18 minutes), and helps prepare employees in case problems or emergencies arise (Problem Behavior and Emergencies, 14 minutes).

To order, visit http://www.AHCApublications.org or call (800) 321-0343.

Product # 6790D
AHCA Members (on-line price) $99.00

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Important information for residents and families This brochure outlines what physical restraints are, when they should be used, rules and regulations concerning restraints, and making decisions about using them. Contact Jan Williams at janw@nchcfa.org to order brochures for your facility.

• NCHCFA Member: $30.00 per 100 brochures plus tax and shipping
• Non-Members: $60.00 per 100 brochures plus tax and shipping

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How Much Sleep Do We Really Need?

http://sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/how-much-sleep-do-we-really-need

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On average, there are 200 seeds on a strawberry.

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