UPDATE Weekly

Electronic submission of staffing data through the Payroll-Based Journal (PBJ) is required of all Long Term Care Facilities in 2016. July 1 begins the first date of data collection. You will have up to 45 days to submit data from July 1, 2016-September 30, 2016. The last day to submit data for the quarter is November 14, 2016. All nursing homes are encouraged to register to submit data to prepare to meet this requirement and maintain compliance.

• Step 1: Obtain a CMSNet User ID for PBJ Individual, Corporate and Third Party users, if you don’t already have one for other QIES applications (https://www.qtso.com/cmsnet.html) (many users may already have this access for MDS submission).
• Step 2: Obtain a PBJ QIES Provider ID for CASPER Reporting and PBJ system access (https://mds.qiesnet.org/mds_home.html)

Training: PBJ Training Modules for an introduction to the PBJ system and step by step registration instruction are available on QTSO e-University, select the PBJ option https://www.qtso.com/webex/qiesclasses.php More information is available on the PBJ Website. https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Quality-Initiatives-Patient-Assessment-Instruments/NursingHomeQualityInits/Staffing-Data-Submission-PBJ.html

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The NC Health Care Facilities Association presents “A National Update-Proposed Regulations and the Changing Definition of Quality.” Long term care leaders are equipping themselves for a new climate, a new day in healthcare. Changes on a federal level include:

• Additions to Five Star
• New Quality Measures
• Progress on the Improving Post-Acute Care Transformation (IMPACT) Act
• Electronic staffing data collection
• Changes to the Requirements of Participation and a new survey process

These changes will allow us to reevaluate our systems and find new opportunities to drive quality and improving care for our residents. Discover how to navigate this new environment and become Quality Change Agents. Learn how a systems approach and American Health Care Association’s (AHCA) resources can provide solutions for your organization. Leave this session with tools, ideas and a fresh perspective on how to move forward in these changing times. Topics will include:

• Identify changes that will occur over the next three years and the impact they will have on your setting
• Actions and best practices that will help you and your organization be a top performer
• Recognizing the resources and support that AHCA/NCAL provides

This information will be presented by Lyn Bentley, MSW, VP of Quality and Regulatory Affairs and Marguerite McLaughlin, Sr. Director of Quality Improvement at AHCA. This seminar will be in Greensboro, NC on June 21st, 2016. Click here to register on-line! Click here to download a brochure/registration form! Don’t wait! Register today!

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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.

Do not miss Addiction and Recovery with the Baby Boomer Generation on Wednesday, August 10th. The Baby Boomer generation is beginning to reach middle age and health care providers are being challenged to meet the needs of a group raised in the 60’s and 70’s and since, a group that grew up in the era of the sexual revolution, women’s liberation, and a drug using culture. With this comes an increase in the use of alcohol, illicit drugs, and the misuse of prescription medications. This workshop will address how to work with this growing population and will provide information on assessment and treatment planning needs.

Dr. Martha Early is Assistant Professor in the Department of Family & Community Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, VA where she is the Director of the Behavioral Medicine Division. She is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and a Licensed Clinical Addictions Specialist with over 20 years in the field of mental health and substance abuse treatment and has worked in inpatient, outpatient and intensive outpatient settings. She received her Master of Social Work degree from East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, and her PhD in Higher Education from Old Dominion University, in Norfolk, VA. Dr. Early is adjunct faculty in the School of Social Work at East Carolina University and in the Departments of Health Sciences and Counseling and Human Services at Old Dominion University.

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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. Brochures will be available soon!

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Over the past months, American Health Care Association (AHCA) staff has identified best practices of members who are meeting the requirement for the submission of contractor/consultant hours for the Payroll Based Journal (PBJ) requirement. These include the following:

a. Some members are having their consultants/contractors use the center’s time swipe system to capture their hours directly into their time and attendance system which can then be exported into an XML file. Note that the hours in the time and attendance system cannot exceed the hours paid on your contractor/consultant invoices.

b. Other members are requiring consultants/contractors to submit the hours worked each day in a format that easily allows uploading them into a time and attendance system. This solution only works if the time and attendance system allows for easy upload of a file with all the hours for each consultant/contractor.

c. Members are also contracting with vendors who for a fee will combine all contractor/consultant hours into an XML format to be uploaded into the CMS system. For this solution, members are still required to capture the hours worked each day by the contractors/consultants and provide that information to the vendor in an Excel of CSV format. AHCA is aware of two vendors – ezPBJ and MuellerProst – (there may be more) that allow for providers to upload their own contractor/consultant data and convert it into the required XML files.

d. Some members who do not have a large number of consultants/contracts working in their centers have decided to manually enter in the data for their hours.

e. Lastly, certain members are working with contractors/consultants who are proactively providing the nursing center with their hours in an XML format.

AHCA reminds all members that for any of the above solutions, it is necessary for you to have conversations with your consultants/contractors as well as your time and attendance vendor. Any solution that you use needs to be tailored to the needs of your center.

NCHCFA members have access to a list of vendors that offer a tailored PBJ solution and other resources available at ahcancalED.

https://www.ahcancal.org/facility_operations/Documents/Vendors%20with%20solution%20for%20PBJ%203%2016.pdf.

https://educate.ahcancal.org/products/payroll-based-journal-pbjmandatory-staffing-data-collection.

You may also submit your PBJ questions to AHCA staff at staffdatacollection@ahca.org.

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Please plan to join your friends and colleagues in beautiful Pinehurst, North Carolina, on September 15th and 16th for the Fifth Annual Autumn Classic Golf Tournament. The event will begin Thursday with golf, a reception, dinner and program held at the world famous Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club. The Pinehurst Autumn Classic is being sponsored by the NC Health Care Facilities Association to benefit our political action committee (PAC). You do not have to play golf to participate! CLICK HERE for registration materials.

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The American Health Care Association’s (AHCA) Life Safety Consultant, Jensen Hughes, is presenting a free Webinar focused on the changes taking place for health care providers (SNFs, NFs, and ID/DD centers that are surveyed as health care facilities) associated with the CMS adoption of the 2012 Edition of the Life Safety Code. The Webinar is scheduled for June 9, 2016 from 1:00 to 2:00 PM ET.

For more information on the Federal Register posting for the rule change click here.

To register for the Webinar, click here.

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It’s here and it’s hot! This year’s AHCA/NCAL Convention & Expo Preliminary Program is now available on-line! You can even read it on your mobile devices. Take a look at what Nashville has in store for you October 16-19 in this easy-to-access, easy-to-read flip book.

This year’s Convention & Expo offers national keynote speakers, valuable education, professional networking, exciting exhibits staffed with experts ready to help your company excel, and music, of course! In the spirit of the Grand Ole Opry, the Gala Dinner & Show (separate ticketed event) features three artists, each with their own unique style and sound. You’ll enjoy an evening with award-winning county artists Charlie Daniels, Jo Dee Messina, and Phil Vassar.

Once you preview the electronic Preliminary Program, you’ll be inspired to register for the AHCA/NCAL Convention & Expo. Early bird registration and savings continue through July 22.

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This is part 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 we will feature the element of Clinical Foundation: Consistent Use of Evidence-Based Practice

Key Takeaways: Consistent Use of Evidence-Based Practice

 Practice is based on evidence as well as shared decision-making between clinical experts, the residents’ experiences and preferences, and other robust sources of information.
 Evidence-based practice can help decrease uncertainty and lead to important improvements in resident quality and safety, while also contributing to cost savings.
 The identification and use of reliable evidence-based approaches contributes substantially to safe, effective, patient-centered, efficient, timely, and equitable care.

Probing Questions for Team Reflection and Discussion:

1. What evidence-based practices do we use?
2. What areas of our practice do we have uncertainty? Are there evidence-based practices that will help us improve?
3. Do we use evidence-based care paths to systematically address care?

Visit the AHCA Clinical Practice Website to learn more about the element of “Clinical Foundation: Consistent Use of Evidence-Based Practice” 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.

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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 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.

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With more than 100 activities and care plans for long term care residents, there’s an activity that suits each resident’s distinct needs, no matter what the clinical condition or cognitive limitation.
Inside this book, you’ll find:

• Dozens of comprehensive activity plans for every type of resident
• Simple explanations of corresponding CMS regulations
• Chapters devoted to residents with unique activity needs, including Alzheimer’s and dementia residents, bariatric residents, short-term stay residents, non-ambulatory residents, and more.

Each activity provides concise and specific steps that will help make it a success. Several variations, adaptations, modifications, and hints for customizing the activity to your facility are also offered. Bonus CD-ROM included! Each of the activities, forms, and care plans found in this book can also be accessed on the companion CD-ROM. Take this CD-ROM with you to any location and provide your residents with meaningful activities to foster a higher quality of life.

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

Product # 8131
AHCA Members (on-line price) $129.00

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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).

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How Are Buddhist Chaplains Trained?

http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2016/05/26/buddhist-chaplains

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Over 10 billion donuts are made in the United States each year.

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