UPDATE Weekly

Register today to attend the NCHCFA Annual Convention and Expo January 28 – 31, 2018, 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 2018 Convention” to receive the group discounted rate. Don’t miss the opportunity to earn up to 16.5 hours of educational credit for North Carolina Nursing Home Administrators, as well as up to 15.5 hours of Nursing CE credit! The advanced registration deadline is Friday, January 12th. Click here to register.

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Beginning January 1, 2018, NCHCFA will allow Assisted Living Facilities (ALFs) in North Carolina to join the National Center for Assisted Living (NCAL) through NCHCFA’s affiliation with AHCA/NCAL. Any ALF that elects to join NCAL will be a member facility of NCAL but will not be a member of NCHCFA.

If an ALF wishes to join NCAL, please e-mail Karen Lennon for membership dues information at KarenL@nchcfa.org or phone at (919) 782-3827.

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The updated List of Excluded Individuals and Entities (LEIE) database file, which reflects all OIG exclusions and reinstatement actions up to, and including, those taken in December 2017 has been posted. The updated files are posted on OIG’s Web site at https://oig.hhs.gov/exclusions/exclusions_list.asp. Healthcare providers have an “affirmative duty” to check to ensure that excluded individuals are not working in their facilities or face significant fines.

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Don’t miss the opportunity to bring a staff member to the 2018 Annual Convention & Expo for free! If a facility registers two staff for Package Two, a third staff member (Activity Director, Dietary or Maintenance staff, Nurse Aide, or Social Worker) may register for Package Two at no charge. The Expo 2018 seminar for Package Two registrants will include topics appropriate for any team member that works in long term care including Activity Directors, Dietary & Maintenance staff, Nurses, Nurse Aides, and Social Workers.

About the Program:

Finding Your “Fred Factor” is based on the powerful book The Fred Factor, by motivational speaker Mark Sanborn. This book recounts the true story of Fred, the mail carrier who passionately loves his job and who genuinely cares about the people he serves. Where others might see delivering mail as monotonous drudgery, Fred sees an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of those he serves.

In this session, Mark Gogal presents an interactive developmental session that focuses on “turning the ordinary into the extraordinary” in work and daily life. He explores what “customers” really need and what it truly means to “serve others.” Mark discusses principles to become more successful by building strong relationships, to bring fresh energy and creativity to your job, and how to create real value for others. Register today and learn how to operate like a “Fred” and the positive and lasting impact it has on those you interact with every day!

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NCHCFA is adding a new benefit of membership in 2018—a monthly Lunch and Learn Webinar Series. NCHCFA will offer a one-hour Webinar on a timely and relevant topic to its members for no additional charge. There will be no CEU offered for these Webinars. Information on topics for the year will be available in the coming weeks.

The first Webinar in the series is scheduled for January 11th, 2018 from 12noon-1pm. Please see below for the January 11th Webinar information. Don’t miss out; put this on your calendar today!

Session info: Staying Power: How to Keep Employees Longer
Presenter: Cara Silletto, Crescendo Strategies

While some of today’s workforce is made up of deep-rooted, dependable staff, a larger number of positions are now a revolving door of turnover. During this webinar, employee retention expert Cara Silletto will teach participants ways to slow this revolving door and maximize the time you have with employees.

• Discover current employee turnover trends and future staffing projections
• Uncover the real reasons employees leave most organizations and ways to encourage them to stay
• Learn strategies for preparing your organization to manage shorter-term workers

Workforce thought leader Cara Silletto, MBA, is the President of Crescendo Strategies, a firm committed to reducing unnecessary employee turnover by bridging generational gaps and making leaders more effective in their roles. Cara currently sits in a unique sweet spot for her specialty of bridging the great generational divide, because she is an early Millennial herself, born in 1981, yet she is equipped with an MBA and more than 14 years of experience learning the unwritten expectations of older managers and business owners in order to advance her own career. Workforce Magazine named Cara a “Game Changer” and Recruiter.com named her in their “Top 10 Company Culture Experts to Watch.” Cara is also the co-author of “What’s Next in HR.”

Click here to log on January 11th at 12noon.

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The North Carolina Health Care Facilities Association would like to thank our 2018 Gold Convention Hosts for supporting the upcoming Annual Convention & Expo. Be sure to visit them on Tuesday, January 30th during EXPO 2018 – NCHCFA National Best Bowl: Blue Ridge Pharmacy, Equinox Ventures Group, Healthcare Services Group, Medipack Pharmacy, NH Med Services, Poyner Spruill LLP, PruittHealth, QMX Mobile Health, Remedi SeniorCare, Southern Pharmacy Services and TridentCareRX.

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The North Carolina Health Care Facilities Association would like to thank our 2018 Silver Convention Supporters for hosting the upcoming Annual Convention & Expo. Be sure to visit Neil Medical Group, Smith Moore Leatherwood LLP, and TeamHealth on Tuesday, January 30th during EXPO 2018 – NCHCFA National Best Bowl.

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Phase 2 of the RoP includes the requirement to communicate specific information to a receiving provider when a facility transfers or discharges a resident (§483.15(c)(2)). This includes, but is not limited to, isolation precaution information due to current or previous infection/colonization, most recent relevant labs, medications (including when last received), advance directive information, and comprehensive care plan goals. In order to facilitate this communication between healthcare settings, the SHARPP Program at the Division of Public Health developed and piloted an interfacility transfer form. The form contains the information necessary for long-term care facilities to comply with the revised Medicare and Medicaid requirements as they relate to communication to the receiving provider at transfer and discharge.

Pilot participants from long-term care facilities, emergency medical services, and an acute care hospital reviewed the form favorably. Participants reported the form was useful for identifying individuals on isolation precautions and identifying appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE); initiating isolation precautions in the emergency department; preparing PPE in the ambulance; and identifying individual needs and baseline status. Participants also reported that using a standard interfacility transfer form county-wide was beneficial in communicating information clearly and efficiently between different healthcare facilities. This collaborative approach to interfacility communication reflects CDC recommendations for managing multidrug-resistant organisms in healthcare settings and combating antibiotic resistance. The NC SHARPP Program encourages any efforts to standardize interfacility communication between healthcare facilities and collaboration to contain and prevent multidrug-resistant organisms.

The form and instructions are available free of charge from the NC SHARPP Program Webpage: http://epi.publichealth.nc.gov/cd/hai/providers.html. For additional information or questions e-mail nchai@dhhs.nc.gov.

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The State of North Carolina, Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Medical Assistance (DMA) is requesting information critical to understanding the current and future practice of transition related services as the federal funding for the Money Follows the Person (MFP) demonstration draws to a close. To date, nearly 900 individuals have transitioned to the community through the efforts of health and human service organizations and providers. Below is a link to a survey that will assist the State in identifying both best practices and areas for improvement as the transition activities become a permanent part of the Medicaid home and community-based services (HCBS) landscape.

While this survey is focused on agencies/organizations transitioning individuals from nursing facilities, acute care settings, and/or adult care homes into the community, DMA is inviting any organization that provides transition related services to respond including but not limited to organizations transitioning individuals from intermediate care facilities for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities into the community. As a stakeholder with insight into quality transition practices, DMA invites your organization to participate in the survey, which will assist the Department in identifying current transition related practices and help inform future opportunities to grow and improve the program.

DMA anticipates that completion of the survey will take approximately 15 minutes. Although DMA asks that you include identifying information in your response, answers are strictly confidential and will only be shared with the State’s MFP staff as well as Mercer (https://www.mercer.com).
Some information may be included in an aggregate form as part of a final report that will be publicly available. The State wants to thank you in advance for participating in this survey and welcomes feedback on how the program can improve in the future.

Questions regarding access or completion of the survey should be directed to Mercer at Michael.Smith1@mercer.com with a copy to Trish.Farnham@dhhs.nc.gov. Your response to this survey is greatly appreciated.

Survey Link | https://survey.mercer.com/North-Carolina-MFP-and-Transition-Program-Survey.aspx

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The AHCA/NCAL 2018 Independent Owner Leadership Conference will be in New Orleans March 14-17, 2018. This is a unique and invaluable opportunity to earn CEUs, get fresh ideas, and discuss the challenges you and other Independent Owners (IOs) who own or operate 10 or fewer assisted living or skilled nursing centers deal with every day. You will have the opportunity to socialize and get to know other IOs from across the country.

Register by March 2nd and receive a $50 discount. Bring an IO peer attending for the first time and they will receive a $100 discount. The IO Conference immediately follows the AHCA/NCAL Quality Summit also in New Orleans.

Get all the details and register today.

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The AHCA/NCAL 3rd Annual Quality Summit will be held in New Orleans on March 12-14, 2018. There’s nothing better than spring time in New Orleans. You can enjoy great food and music while taking in the historic sites of the city. The Quality Summit offers education sessions that focuses on quality improvement, or other critical areas that impact organizational performance and resident care. The Quality Summit is ideal for skilled nursing, post-acute, and assisted living professionals!

Register now! You can earn up to 12 credits attending classes focused on:

• The New Survey – join us for a session devoted to the new survey process including information from providers who have already been through the new survey process
• Restorative Sleep – Empira Executive Director Sarah Brown, RN, LNHA will present their nationally recognized work on the importance of sleep
• Workforce Challenges – this year’s summit includes sessions on workforce development and staff engagement
• Antibiotic Stewardship and Infection Control – two experts from the CDC will provide information on these important topics
• AHCA/NCAL Quality Award – this session will provide an overview of how to apply for a Quality Award as an assisted living center

Check out the education sessions, events and sponsors on-line. You can also download a copy of this year’s Quality Summit invitation.

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Since the inception of AHCA/NCAL’s National Quality Award Program, more than 4,700 centers across the country have been recognized for their dedication and commitment to quality improvement.

The program, which is based on the Baldrige Performance Excellence Framework, is known for its focus on excellence and its rigorous and demanding set of criteria. The journey to quality improvement and performance excellence is challenging – but it can be done.

AHCA/NCAL has made available the story of Mountain Valley through a new six-part Webinar series for members on AHCA’s education platform, ahcancalED, to showcase the center’s successful journey to performance excellence.

In this series, Mountain Valley leaders share how their small, 68-bed rural center in Kellogg, Idaho achieved all three levels of the Quality Award Program, and then went on to receive the nation’s highest award for performance excellence, the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Mountain Valley was the first and only long term care center ever to be recognized with this honor.

AHCA/NCAL members can access this series through ahcancalED here. Questions may be submitted to qualityaward@ahca.org.

The AHCA/NCAL National Quality Award Program Application and Payment Deadline is February 1, 2018 at 8pm EST

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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) 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.

To register, click here for the Participation Agreement and fax or e-mail it back to Lisa Klemis, contact information is on the Participation Agreement. For more details, e-mail Leighann Sauls at Leighann.Sauls@area-F.hcqis.org or call (919) 745-4730.

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Alliant Quality, the Quality Innovation Network-Quality Improvement Organization (QIN-QIO) for North Carolina is seeking central North Carolina skilled nursing facilities interested in collaborating on the Special Innovation Project (SIP) Improving Access to Palliative Care in the Long Term Care Facility.

Palliative care focuses on comfort and improving quality of life. A team of professionals helps residents and families navigate through the health care system and make health care decisions that are right for them. Goals of this project not only include providing quality of life and satisfaction for residents of skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), but also provision of services that minimize risks of potentially avoidable transfers to acute care.

Often, nursing home residents lack advance directives that would assist them at the end of life. When a resident, without an advanced directive, suffers a worsening of their clinical condition, a cascade of care is put into motion and can trigger unwanted emergency room visits and admissions, which can lead to other complications. The provision of palliative care services for SNF residents supports person-directed care in a proactive way to honor the patient and their choices.

Alliant Quality, in partnership with SNFs and palliative care organizations, will develop customized education and learning sessions for SNF leaders to better understand palliative care and its beneficial role for the residents whom they are caring for each day. This educational offering will be pilot-tested in central North Carolina with SNFs who are interested in this Special Innovation Project offered through the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services.

Participating SNFs will have the opportunity to:

• Receive free training programs designed to improve their SNF staff competency and knowledge related to end-of-life care
• Join a learning network with experts on palliative care in the SNF setting
• Partner with palliative care providers in order to improve the quality of life of their residents
• Implement low-burden measurement strategies that monitor resident and family satisfaction with end-of-life care
• Improve rates of avoidable acute care transfers and hospital admission and readmission rates

For more information, contact:
Jennifer Judson RN, BSN
Project Lead, Palliative Care
Office: (678) 527-3473
Jennifer.Judson@alliantquality.org

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The issue of Legionella and water safety has increasingly been a hot topic for members, particularly since the release of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) guidance last year. In response to member requests for more guidance, AHCA has coordinated this Webinar from Dr. Nimalie Stone of the CDC to provide clarity on the issue and invite questions & answers. The Webinar will be recorded and available to access on ahcancalED after the event date.

Title: Water Safety and Reducing the Risk for Legionella in Nursing Homes
Event Date: January 31, 2018 – 1:30PM – 3:00PM (EDT)
Registration: educate.ahcancal.org/p/180131
Speaker: Nimalie D. Stone, MD, MSMD, MS
LTC Team Lead, Prevention and Response Branch
Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion
Centers for Disease Control & Prevention

Description: Legionnaires’ disease is caused by a type of bacterium called Legionella. Those at risk include persons who are at least 50 years old, smokers, or those with underlying medical conditions such as chronic lung disease or immunosuppression. Outbreaks have been linked to poorly maintained water systems in buildings with large or complex water systems including hospitals and long term care facilities. Transmission can occur via aerosols from devices such as showerheads, cooling towers, hot tubs, and decorative fountains. CMS expects Medicare certified healthcare facilities to have water management policies and procedures to reduce the risk of growth and spread of Legionella and other opportunistic pathogens in building water systems. This Webinar will review the necessary steps to take and resources available to support your efforts in developing these prevention and management systems and processes.

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Save 15% on AHCA’s Long Term Care Survey Phase II edition during cyber week! Order the Long Term Care Survey Phase II edition, using promo code CYBER and save 15% this week only. The recently released Phase II edition of the Long Term Care Survey includes all the updates from Phase I and the Phase II of CMS’ three-phase implementation plan that is set to take place over the next several years. It includes completely new F-tag numbers, updated guidance, and some revised regulatory language. The newest updates and revisions are now in effect. With more than 800 pages of new content, it is imperative that every center have a copy!

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

AHCA MEMBER PRICING
Softbound (Product# 6775-2017): $64.95
Binder (Product# 6775N-2017): $85.95
E-Book (Product# 6775E-2017): $129.95

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If you were unable to attend one of our sessions on the Requirements of Participation Phase 2 and the New Survey Process, the notebook used in the training is now available for purchase. E-mail Donna Snyder to order a notebook for your facility at donnas@nchcfa.org. The cost is $25.00 plus tax and shipping.

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The next big thing at 2018 CES: Gadgets with an older crowd in mind

McKnight’s Article

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Teddy Roosevelt was blind in one eye after a boxing injury in the White House. The President continued with his hobby of boxing well into his presidency. He suffered a detached retina in a bout in 1908, and stopped fighting. He switched to jiu-jitsu instead.

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