UPDATE Weekly

The North Carolina Health Care Facilities Association would like to thank our 2016 Gold Convention Hosts for supporting the upcoming Annual Convention & Expo – The Art of Caring. Be sure to visit them at the booths on Tuesday, February 23rd during Expo 2016 – The Art of Patriotism.

Blue Ridge Pharmacy – Booths 531 & 632
Healthcare Services Group – Booths 526 & 528
Legacy Consultant Pharmacy – Booth 520
Medipack Pharmacy – Booths 213 & 215
Neil Medical – Booths 301, 303, 400 & 402
NH Medical Services – Booths 417 & 516
PruittHealth – Booths 323, 325, 327, 329, 422, 424, 426 & 428
Southern Pharmacy – Booths 501 & 503

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One Tuesday, March 15th at 10:00 AM, Palmetto GBA will hold a one-hour consolidated billing Webcast. This Webcast will cover an overview of Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF) Consolidated Billing information. Palmetto GBA will review inclusions/exclusions; any new SNF updates as well as SNF paid claim error rates and top SNF denial reason codes. If you are a skilled nursing facility provider, please plan to join this informative Webcast.

To register, click here. When registering, if you do not have a NPI or PTAN, please enter none or N/A.

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The Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation (IMPACT) Act of 2014 requires the reporting of standardized patient assessment data by Post-Acute Care (PAC) providers, including skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, inpatient rehabilitation facilities, and long-term care hospitals. It specifies that data elements must be standardized and interoperable to allow for the exchange and use of data among these PAC and other providers, including common standards and definitions to facilitate coordinated care and improved beneficiary outcomes. During this call, CMS subject matter experts and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT discuss the implications of the IMPACT Act for health information exchange across the care continuum.

The call will take place on Thursday, February 4th from 1:30 to 3:00 PM ET. To register, click here.

Agenda:

• Requirements to standardize and make interoperable post-acute care assessment data elements
• Using and exchanging clinically relevant assessment data for multiple purposes
• Health Information Technology Standards – A Primer
• CMS Data Element Library
• Electronic health information exchange

This call is intended for providers across the care continuum, including long-term/post-acute care and home and community-based service providers, acute and primary care providers, integrated delivery systems and representatives from other payment models, health IT vendors, and other interested stakeholders.

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KEPRO is the Beneficiary and Family Centered Care Quality Improvement Organization (BFCC-QIO) for more than 30 states. They offer information and assistance to providers, patients and families regarding financial complaints, discharge appeals and Immediate Advocacy. During the Webinar, KEPRO representatives will present an overview of the role of the BFCC-QIO and the services provided.

The Webinar will be held on Thursday, January 21st from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM ET. To register, click here.

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Election of officers and members of the Board of Directors will be conducted on Monday, February 22nd, during NCHCFA’s Business Meeting. The business meeting will be held in conjunction with NCHCFA’s 2016 annual Convention in Greensboro. All persons seeking an office or a position on the Board of Directors should have their name submitted to the Nominating Committee by Friday, February 12th. The nomination must be submitted in writing or e-mailed and include the candidate’s full name, the office being sought and the facility or company of employment. Please mail or e-mail the information to the attention of:

By Mail:

Nominating Committee
North Carolina Health Care Facilities Association
5109 Bur Oak Circle
Raleigh, NC 27612

By Email:

Karen Lennon, NCHCFA, karenl@nchcfa.org

Nominating Committee: David Kidder (Chair), Cheryl Clapp-Coleman and Kevin Cox.

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Not for Profit organizations, especially trade associations, rely heavily on the volunteer time of its membership. One important way to make a difference is by serving on one of NCHCFA’s committees. Members have until March 15th to volunteer to serve on one of NCHCFA’s committees: Standards and Ethics, Provider Relations, Education and Programs, Quality Advisory, and Payment for Services. Click here for a description of the committees. Click here for the sign-up form for all committees.

All committee assignments are for a two-year term beginning at the time of appointment and ending February 28, 2018. Appointments are made by the Chair of NCHCFA’s Board of Directors. Only representatives from member facilities in good standing are eligible to serve. Committees generally conduct two in-person meetings per year and others as needed by conference call. When submitting your request, please choose more than one committee and rank selections in order of preference. Each committee is limited to 20 people.

Members currently on committees will need to go through the sign-up process.

If you volunteer to serve on a committee, please make the commitment to participate. We promise to be respectful of your time and busy schedules.

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Register today for the NCHCFA Annual Convention and Trade Show, The Art of Caring, February 21-24, 2016 at the Sheraton Greensboro Hotel at Four Seasons/Joseph S. Koury Convention Center in Greensboro, NC! Call the Sheraton at (800) 242-6556 to make your room reservation. Identify that you are with “NC Health Care Facilities Association 2016 Convention” to receive the group discounted rate. Don’t miss the opportunity to earn up to 15.5 hours of educational credit for North Carolina Nursing Home Administrators, as well as up to 14.5 hours of Nursing CE credit! The advanced registration deadline is Friday, February 5th. To obtain an additional brochure visit the Member Center of the Association’s Web site at http://www.NursingHomesNC.com.

Chair Kevin Cox and the NCHCFA Board of Directors invite you to West 54th Street in Manhattan for a night of fun at “Studio 54” on Monday, February 22 at the Chairman’s Evening Extravaganza-A Night at Studio 54. Join your colleagues in the Sheraton’s old Club 5th Season for a night of glitz and glamour at the legendary New York nightclub that defined the disco era. It was “the place” for the rich and famous to be seen in the late 1970’s! There will be plenty of “pop art”, food, and entertainment by the band Liquid Pleasure.

Disco anyone? Pull out your bell-bottoms and get ready for three straight hours of mesmerizing choreography! For more than two decades Liquid Pleasure has been bringing audiences to their feet. The Liquid Pleasure Super Show includes its six amazing original band members, three additional female vocalists, and an entire horn section. The band will play all the greatest tunes from your favorite decade.

Come dressed as one of the regulars from Studio 54’s past such as Andy Warhol, Cher, Mick Jagger, Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, or Elizabeth Taylor. A photographer will be on hand and great prizes will be awarded for the best dressed male and female. Heavy hors d’oeuvres will be served. Register today so the doormen will let you past the legendary velvet ropes!

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Alliant Quality wants to encourage SNFs to keep signing up for the National Collaborative – or SPACE. Alliant recommends having as much time as possible to get started on QAPI improvement work and improving facility quality measures in a systems approach to improve their five star and composite scores.

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.

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.

When ready to register, click here for the Participation Agreement and fax or e-mail it back to Lisa Klemis. For more details, e-mail Jennifer Brock at Jennifer.Brock@area-F.hcqis.org or call (678) 527-3417.

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To obtain a copy of the minutes from the Business Meeting held on Monday, February 16, 2015 at the Sheraton Four Seasons/Joseph S. Koury Convention Center, Greensboro, NC, please click here.

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The book presents specific care strategies for all stages of dementia and emphasizes relatively simple interventions that nurses can incorporate into their care plans to prevent problems or address them before they escalate. The guide distinguishes between dementia and conditions that mimic dementia, discusses issues related to specific care settings, presents person-centered strategies for families and care partners, and covers the assessment and management of pain, safety concerns, communication strategies, and ethical and legal issues. It additionally provides numerous resources that nurses can offer to caregivers. Fast Facts for Dementia Care will serve as a daily companion for all clinical nurses who work with older patients in any setting, including the emergency room, medical-surgical unit, medical office, and community mental health settings.

Key Features:

• Easy to use and carry in all patient settings
• Provides communication techniques for different stages of dementia
• Describes numerous interventions for addressing issues such as pain, safety, behaviours, and ADLs
• Includes the “Fast Facts in a Nutshell” feature for quick reference
• Illustrates content with case vignettes

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

Product #8293
AHCA MEMBERS $30.00

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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. To order, e-mail your request to Donna Snyder at donnas@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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Transforming the views of healthcare by looking through the different lens of change

http://www.mcknights.com/guest-columns/the-extraordinary-view/article/465566/

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According to Coca-Cola, the perfect temperature to serve Coke at is 34-38 degrees Fahrenheit.

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