UPDATE Weekly

Register today for the North Carolina Health Care Facilities Association’s “Assessment of Wounds and Pain Management/Best Practices in Long-Term Care.”

The topics are:

• Pain – The Fifth Vital Sign
• Assessment and Treatment of Vascular Disease and Ulceration
• Skin Care – A Guide for Wound Prevention and Long-Term Success

This program will be presented by Dr. Chuck Gokoo on March 26th, 2015 at the Embassy Suites Greensboro! Online registration is available by logging onto our Web site at http://www.NursingHomesNC.com and clicking on “Assessment of Wounds and Pain Management/Best Practices in Long-Term Care.” Don’t miss it!/p>

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House Bill 200 was introduced last week in the General Assembly to repeal portions of North Carolina’s Certificate of Need (CON) law. The bill proposes to exempt diagnostic centers, ambulatory surgical facilities, gastrointestinal endoscopy rooms, and psychiatric hospitals from CON review. The legislation’s principle sponsors are Rep. Marilyn Avila (R-Wake), Rep. Jeff Collins (R-Nash), Rep. Dan Bishop (R-Mecklenburg) and Rep. Mickey Michaux (D-Durham). Although primarily a dispute among hospitals and specialty physicians, House Bill 200, could lead to support for an outright repeal of CON. NCHCFA opposes eliminating certificate of need requirements, especially for institutional providers, including skilled nursing facilities. Deregulation of limits on the number of nursing home beds would be chaotic especially in light of the uncertainty surrounding Medicaid reform and low reimbursement rates. NCHCFA will carefully monitor House Bill 200 and will alert you if the debate broadens beyond the bill’s original scope.

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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has restructured the Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) Program to further enhance the quality of services to Medicare beneficiaries. Since August 1, 2014, KEPRO has been the Beneficiary and Family Centered Care QIO (BFCC-QIO) for the state of North Carolina. Previously, the QIO in North Carolina was The Carolinas Center for Medical Excellence.

KEPRO has launched Case Review Connections, a new quarterly e-newsletter to share information from the Beneficiary and Family Centered Care Quality Improvement Organization (BFCC-QIO). The focus of the e-newsletter is on the providers and stakeholders. KEPRO will respond to the questions they hear most often, offer tips on case review processes, and showcase content that comes from you. Click here to read the latest KEPRO newsletter for postacute providers.

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We are excited about the number of nursing homes that have decided to participate in the Alliant Quality National Nursing Home Quality Care Collaborative (NNHQCC). Alliant Quality would like to invite each of you to attend a brief (30-minute) informational session in April. If you have not already completed a participation agreement and do not want to be left out, please complete the agreement and return to nancy.fendler@alliantquality.org.

WEBINAR TOPICS:

• Overview of the SPACE Collaborative
• Performance Improvement Project Goal Selection
• Upcoming SPACE Educational Topics
• QAPI Self-Assessment Tool

Thank you for your commitment to improving healthcare quality and the lives of residents in nursing homes in North Carolina.

There are four Opportunities, please click on the dates below to register.

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

• 10:30 am – 11:00 am
• 2:00 pm – 2:30 pm

Thursday, April 16, 2015

• 10:30 am – 11:00 am
• 2:00 pm – 2:30 pm

ABOUT ALLIANT QUALITY
Alliant Quality is the Medicare Quality Innovation Network (QIN)-Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) for North Carolina. Under contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Alliant Quality invites your nursing home to participate in a collaborative designed to ensure that every nursing home resident receives the highest quality of care. Specifically, the Nursing Home Quality Care Collaborative (NNHQCC) will strive to instill quality and performance improvement practices, eliminate healthcare acquired conditions, and dramatically improve resident satisfaction.

The Collaborative offers an exciting opportunity to learn from high performing nursing homes regarding their processes as they pertain to consistent/permanent staff assignment, teamwork and communications, leadership, regulatory compliance, clinical models, and quality of life indicators. The Collaborative aligns national nursing home quality initiatives and partnerships such as the Advancing Excellence in America’s Nursing Homes Campaign, The Partnership to Improve Dementia Care, and Quality Assurance Performance Improvement (QAPI). Targeted focus areas will include increasing mobility, decreasing unnecessary use of antipsychotics in residents with dementia, decreasing potentially avoidable hospitalizations and decreasing healthcare acquired infections and conditions.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND
Participants in the Alliant Quality National Nursing Home Quality Care Collaborative (NNHQCC) ~ Southern Partners Action Collaborative for Excellence (SPACE)

If you are ready to register, click here for the Participation Agreement and fax or e-mail it back to Nancy Fendler. For more details, e-mail Nancy at nancy.fendler@alliantquality.org or reach her at (678) 527-3679.

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The NC State Board of Examiners for Nursing Home Administrators will offer the 2015 Preceptor Seminars on April 20-21, 2015 and April 21-22, 2015 at the Kingston Plantation, Myrtle Beach, SC. You will need to choose the first seminar dates for Renewal Preceptor certification and the second seminar dates for Initial Preceptor Certification and Continuing Education Only. The seminars will be open to all nursing home administrators seeking continuing education credits and/or preceptor certification. This is the only Preceptor Seminar being planned for 2015 by the NC State Board of Examiners for Nursing Home Administrators.

Click here to download more information along with the registration form.

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The Five Star reports have been updated in AHCA’s LTC Trend Tracker to reflect the recent CMS changes. These reports include the Five Star Overall, as well as the predictor reports – Five Star Quality Measure (QM) Report and Five Star Staffing Report. The Rating Predictor features allow users to see how potential changes can impact a center’s Five Star QM Rating and Staffing Rating.

Two Webinars will be offered by AHCA for members interested in learning how to use the new reports. Please click on the dates below to register.

• March 26 – 2pm ET
• April 2 – 2pm ET

Login today at http://www.ltctrendtracker.com. Please e-mail help@ltctrendtracker.com with any questions or for additional assistance.

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Learn what it takes to effect real culture change within residential care settings while reducing the administration of psychotropic drugs in the symptomatic treatment of dementia. Dr. G. Allen Power, board-certified internist, geriatrician, nursing home practitioner, and Eden Alternative™ Educator, challenges all care providers working with individuals with dementia to undertake a true operational change. You will learn how to embrace more humanistic, enlightened practices that address the most common challenges in caring for people who live with dementia. Overcome communication challenges, minimize anxiety and depression, root out the causes of wandering, and gain insights into paranoia and delusions so that you can learn to treat individuals with dementia as the human beings that they are rather than letting their dementia define them.

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

Product # 8249
AHCA Members (on-line price) $32.95

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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. To order, e-mail your request to Karen Lennon at karenl@nchcfa.org.

• 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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Woman shark dives and skydives to celebrate 100th birthday.

http://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/nation/2015/03/17/24861713

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St. Patrick did not drive all the snakes from Ireland. There is no evidence that snakes have EVER existed in Ireland. The climate is much too chilly for them.

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