UPDATE Weekly

NC Health Care Facilities Association is pleased to once again partner with Empira to present a full-day seminar for all long term care providers on UNDISTURBED SLEEP & ACTIVE DAYS – KEYS TO IMPROVE QUALITY OF LIFE OF OUR RESIDENTS. The goals of this grant-funded quality improvement project were to have residents sleep undisturbed throughout the night and be more physically active and engaged during the day. Learn how they changed operations in providing care and services to reach these goals. This session will be May 19th at the Hilton Charlotte University Place, Charlotte, NC and will cover the following:

• Restate the key components of the Empira Fall Prevention program.
• Explain the process that leads to the Empira Restorative Sleep Vitality Program.
• Discuss the etiology of sleep and wake in human beings.
• Identify the key components of the Empira Restorative Sleep Vitality Program.
• Identify the top 10 disturbances to sleep.
• Provide five operational actions a long term care provider can do to prevent sleep disturbance.

The cost to attend this seminar is $195 for members and $390 for non-members. This fee includes handouts, snacks, and lunch. YOU CAN REGISTER AND PAY ON-LINE! TO REGISTER, GO TO http://NursingHomesNC.com AND CLICK ON UNDISTURBED SLEEP & ACTIVE DAYS-KEYS TO IMPROVING QUALITY OF LIFE OF OUR RESIDENTS. You may also download a brochure here. Members may be invoiced. Non-members must submit payment on-line or mail with registration. Registration is open to anyone who would like to attend!

[Return to top]

On April 3, NCHCFA sent a letter from NC SPICE to each facility describing this initiative. This is an opportunity for expert assessment and consultation regarding your infection control systems. This initiative is not affiliated with CMS and all data will be submitted to the CDC in aggregated and anonymous formats. Infections are, and will grow rapidly as, one of the major challenges of the health care system.

Staff from the DPH Communicable Disease Branch, along with SPICE, will oversee the implementation of two activities: 1) an infection control assessment program and 2) targeted healthcare infection prevention programs. The primary focus of this project will be to address the lack of comprehensive infection control training and oversight in hospital and non-hospital healthcare facilities across the state and to enhance the ability of public health to work with all facilities to prepare for and mitigate existing or emerging infectious disease threats. NC DPH Communicable Disease Branch is contracting SPICE to:

1. Develop a comprehensive database of all NC healthcare facilities including self-assessment of infection control practices, training, and outbreak assessment. Self-assessment will incorporate checklists developed by the CDC for various healthcare facilities: acute care, nursing home, ambulatory care, and dialysis. The goal is for 50% of each type of healthcare facility to complete the self-assessment. Acute care facilities (acute care hospitals, critical access hospitals, Long-Term Acute Care (LTAC), and Inpatient Rehabilitation Facilities (IRFs) and NC licensed nursing homes will initially complete the self-assessment, followed by ambulatory care facilities in the following year.
2. Conduct facility site visits/consultation (randomly selected from database) for in depth discussion and review of infection control practices and outbreak assessment (detect, report, respond). The goal is to visit 30 hospitals, 80 nursing homes, and 100 ambulatory care facilities.
3. Develop targeted infection control training and education based on identified gaps. SPICE has hired three nurse consultants to implement the site visit/consultation part of the project. In April 2016, they will begin contacting hospitals and nursing homes to schedule site visits/consultations.

One of the two first participants sent NCHCFA this feedback upon receiving our letter. “We completed this last week, and it was great! They provided so much good information for us to work on.”

You may also sign up for a visit and/or learn more about this program, by clicking on the following link: http://spice.unc.edu/icar.

[Return to top]

Make plans today to join your colleagues for the fifth annual NCHCFA Summer Symposium. The three-day event will be August 9-11, 2016 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 “HFA” to identify yourself as a NC Health Care Facilities Association Convention attendee! To make your reservation on-line, visit http://tinyurl.com/summersymposium2016.

[Return to top]

Recently, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the proposed rule for the skilled nursing facility (SNF) prospective payment system (PPS) fiscal year (FY) 2017 update.

We are pleased to report that the proposed rule includes a net market basket increase of 2.1 percent. CMS is holding off another year on a major overhaul of the payment system for SNF, and instead, proposing a PPS update tied with updates in quality measures. The FY 2017 proposed rule continues to advance the integration of payment policy and quality-related provisions with payment and quality reporting, producing new implications from the proposed rule for SNFs.

Specifically, the FY 2017 rule further develops proposals for implementation of the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 SNF rehospitalization program and includes the second set of proposed measures mandated by the Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation Act of 2014 (IMPACT Act). Going forward, the profession will see additional quality provisions in its payment rules.

AHCA has also created a summary with highlights and a preliminary overview of the payment updates, the SNF value-based purchasing program proposed new components, and the IMPACT Act quality reporting additions.

Highlights

• The proposed rule provides for a net market basket increase for SNFs of 2.1 percent beginning October 1, 2016.
• The 2.1 percent market basket update reflects a full market basket increase of 2.6 percent reduced by 0.5 percentage points, in accordance with the multifactor productivity adjustment required by Section 3401(b) of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). No forecast error was incurred.
• The market basket 2.1 percent for FY 2017 for the SNF PPS is based on the IHS Global Insight, Inc. (IGI) first quarter 2016 forecast with historical data through fourth quarter 2015. This figure could change when CMS issues the final rule based on more recent IGI data.
• CMS estimates that the net market basket update would increase Medicare SNF payments by approximately $800 million in FY 2017.
• As noted above, a forecast error correction was not needed. Since the difference between the estimated and actual amount of change in the market basket index was below the 0.5 percentage point threshold in FY 2015, the payment rates for FY 2017 are not impacted by the current IGI data.
• In accordance with the Medicare Modernization Act (MMA), the per diem rate for SNF patients with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) had been increased by 128 percent as of October 1, 2004. Under the CMS proposed rule, this add-on will remain in effect for FY 2017.
• As noted earlier, the Skilled Nursing Facility Value Based Purchasing (VBP) Program (SNF VBP) is discussed. Establishment of the program, which implements a 2 percent withhold to SNF Part A payments that can be earned back based on a SNF’s rehospitalization rate and level of improvement, is required by the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014 (PAMA). CMS proposes that the performance period be based on the calendar year starting January 1, 2017.
• Additionally, CMS proposes four new measures for the Quality Reporting Program (SNF QRP). They are drug regimen review, average cost per Medicare beneficiary, rehospitalization rate, and discharge to community rate.

[Return to top]

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 Quality Assurance Performance Improvement (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 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.

[Return to top]

Alliant Quality will offer two Webinars on Tuesday, May 24, 2016, first at 10:00 a.m. and again at 2:00 p.m. aimed at reducing the unnecessary use of antipsychotics in nursing home residents with dementia. Dr. Adrienne Mims, Vice President, Chief Medical Officer for Alliant Quality, and Mike Crooks, Alliant Pharmacy Lead, will be reviewing the Resident Prioritization Tool – to guide centers in prioritizing residents appropriate for reduction.

Register now by clicking https://qualitynet.webex.com.

[Return to top]

This is part two of a series featuring one element of the Building Prevention Into Every Day Practice: Framework for Successful Clinical Outcomes.

Success in achieving positive resident/patient outcomes is even more critical now than ever before. The link between quality and payment in long term and post-acute care is growing stronger, as evidenced by the SNF Value Based Purchasing Program (VBP), Improving Post-Acute Care Transformation (IMPACT) Act, SNF Quality Reporting Program (QRP) and more. In addition, regulatory activity is intensifying through focused surveys on adverse events, dementia care and MDS. The Five-Star Rating system and Nursing Home Compare have been revised and will add items in the future as it broadens public reporting and transparency. Most importantly, consumers expect and deserve high quality care.

The entire framework outlines key elements from both an organizational and clinical nature that are critical to successful clinical and organizational outcomes. Positively, these elements reflect common denominators that cross multiple care situations. Therefore, instead of being yet another initiative or single focused project to achieve just one outcome, it is a way of acting, thinking and being that will benefit multiple areas across an organization. Each element is addressed in detail throughout the framework.

This week AHCA will feature the element of Organizational Foundation: Right Thing in the Right Way Thinking:

Key Takeaways: Right Thing in the Right Way Thinking

 Constant focus on doing the right thing in the right way with an eye on prevention.
 Conscious consideration of whether the right thing is being done and whether it is being done in the right way.

Probing Questions for Team Reflection and Discussion:

1. Are we doing the right thing? How do we know?
2. Are we doing it correctly? How do we know?
3. What evidence do we use to support our practices?

Visit the AHCA Clinical Practice Web-site to learn more about the element of “Organizational Foundation: Right Thing in the Right Way Thinking” and answers to these key questions:

What does this mean? Why is this important? What are some examples? What is my part (as an individual employee, manager or practitioner)? What can my organization do?

Start somewhere, pick one element and work through it with your team.

[Return to top]

National Nursing Home Week® is May 8-14, 2016! AHCA’s 2016 National Nursing Home Week® (NNHW) specialty products are now available for purchase. This year’s theme with logo, It’s a Small World with a Big Heart, is featured on many of the available items. To purchase National Nursing Home week specialty products including posters, balloons, t-shirts, buttons, and more, shop on-line or call 800-321-0343.

Members are encouraged to place orders early for best product selection (color, size, and available quantities). NNHW items are very popular and will sell out. Ask about t-shirt discounts when ordering.

[Return to top]

Keep people with dementia fully engaged in daily life and help them maximize remaining functional skills by tapping into their innate abilities and interests. Engaging and Communicating with People Who Have Dementia is a trove of advice on how to identify people’s strengths and preferences and then use this knowledge to improve activity programming, communication, and functional independence.

Based on the principles of multiple intelligences, this resource provides assessment forms and instructive explanations and examples to help uncover and then build on each person’s unique abilities. Abundant activity ideas are showcased for each type of intelligence-linguistic, logical, visual, tactile, auditory, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic-plus strategies for adapting them as a person’s abilities decline.

To order, visit http://www.AHCApublications.org or call (800) 321-0343. Fax orders may also be placed at (800) 869-5605.

Product #8311
AHCA MEMBERS $44.95

[Return to top]

This DVD, Mobility and Safe Movement of the Elderly, Improving Your Skills to Prevent Injuries and Reduce Falls, by Teepa Snow, MS, OTR/L., FOTA, Dementia Care & Training Specialist, was developed in conjunction with Wake Allied Health Education Center, Durham Technical Community College and the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Office of Information Systems. The content is formatted in separate segments in order to customize the delivery of content to your learning objective. Handouts developed by Teepa accompany each video and may be reproduced. To order, e-mail your request to Donna Snyder at donnas@nchcfa.org. The price is $35.00 (tax and shipping included).

[Return to top]

Nursing homes starting to offer more individualized menus

http://www.wral.com/nursing-homes-starting-to-offer-more-individualized-menus/15676499/#l8kcTQsJxZPKy2lj.99

[Return to top]

Many of the sweaters worn by Mr. Rogers on the popular television show, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, were actually knitted by his real mother.

[Return to top]