UPDATE Weekly

Time is running out! Register today for 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! Do not 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! To register or obtain an additional brochure visit the Association’s Web site at http://www.NursingHomesNC.com.

If you have any questions or need additional details, please call the Association office at (919) 782-3827.

NCHCFA Convention registration will open Sunday, January 28th at 1:30 PM and remain open until 6:00 PM in the South Lobby of the Sheraton Greensboro Hotel at Four Seasons.

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.

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If you are attending the NCHCFA Annual Convention & Expo, we are pleased to offer a multi-functional Convention App for this year’s event. With the NCHCFA Convention & Expo App you can:

• View the convention agenda
• View exhibitor information
• View attendee list
• Receive alerts & updates for the meeting
• Participate in live polls
• Download session presentations
• View all important convention information
• Communicate with other attendees via the News Feed

All registered attendees will receive an e-mail with download instructions this week. Instructions will also be included in the attendee notebooks!

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UPDATE will not be published next week due to the Association’s Annual Convention and Expo, but will resume publication on February 7, 2018.

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Platinum Corporate Sponsor:

Gold Convention Hosts:

Silver Convention Supporters:

Neil Medical Group
Smith Moore Leatherwood LLP
TeamHealth

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Since January 1, 2018, NCHCFA has allowed 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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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 CEUs offered for these Webinars. Information on topics for the year will be available in the coming weeks.

The next Webinar in the series is scheduled for February 15, 2018, from 12 noon-1:00 PM. Mark your calendar today! Webinar details are below:

Title: Using the Composite Measures to YOUR Advantage
Presenter: Alliant Quality (the QIN-QIO for Georgia and North Carolina)

This Webinar will focus on utilizing composite measures as an important tool to monitor quality improvements and outcomes in nursing homes. The calculator can help nursing homes identify specific areas for improvement among 13 long-stay quality measures that comprise the composite score. Alliant Quality will focus on opportunities for improvement with the various quality measures and discuss best practices for successful outcomes.

A link to the Webinar registration will be e-mailed to all members soon.

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In January, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the long-awaited second phase to the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement (BPCI) program. Called BPCI-Advanced, the effort eliminates the current models, which focus on specific provider types, including Model 3 targeted to post-acute care (PAC) providers. BPCI-Advanced establishes a single bundling program with specific provisions aimed at physicians.

The American Health Care Association (AHCA) has scheduled a one hour BPCI-Advanced Webinar for January 31st starting at 3:00 PM ET. This Webinar will help participants:

1. Understand CMMI’s Priorities in BPCI-Advanced
2. Learn About Key Elements of the Program
3. Gain Insights on Possible Options for PAC Providers

To register for the Webinar, go to https://educate.ahcancal.org/p/180131_2.

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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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The deadline to apply for the 2018 AHCA/NCAL National Quality Award Program is just over one week away!

All applications and payments for all three award levels must be submitted through the on-line portal here by February 1, 2018 at 8 p.m. EST.

• To submit your payment, click the button, “Submit Your Payment Here”, on the portal.
• To submit your application, use the drop-down menu below the header, “Quality Award Application Submission Below”, which is beneath the payment button, “Submit Your Payment Here” on the portal.

Application packets are available on the Bronze, Silver and Gold award Web pages.

Below are some additional tips for submitting your application on-line:

• SNF applicants will need their six-digit Federal/Medicare Provider Number to submit their application. NCAL applicants can write N/A for this field.
• Double check that the organization name is exactly the same for both fields. The organization name you submit will be the name printed on your award, if selected to be a recipient. If you have a parent company, please double check if there is specific way your center name should be written.
• Characters and spaces need to be exactly the same in order for a successful submission. Extra spaces may cause an error message.
• When your application is submitted successfully, applicants will receive confirmation of submission both on screen and through one automatic email. If the email is not received and is not in a Junk folder, please contact Quality Award staff.
• Payments must be made online via credit card. Checks are not accepted. Invoices are also not provided.

If you have any additional questions, please e-mail qualityaward@ahca.org.

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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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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 – 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM (EDT)
Registration: https://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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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 new emergency preparedness requirements from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) become effective November 16. To help prepare skilled nursing facilities participating in Medicare and Medicaid to meet these new requirements, the American Health Care Association (AHCA) is pleased to offer a new Emergency & Disaster Preparedness Kit prepared by IlluminAge Communication Partners.

The new kit includes three main components:

• Online Emergency Document Storage and Portal. This service makes it easy and fast to organize, store, and have online/offline emergency access to “must have” documents, such as emergency contact lists, evacuation and resident relocation plans, emergency staffing plans, valve shut-off instructions, etc.
• Step-by-Step Video. A 26-minute video that provides an excellent overview of CMS’ new emergency preparedness requirements, including their background and context, the timeline for compliance, and the elements every emergency planning effort must include.
• Emergency Preparedness Checklist. A 28-page companion that will give your emergency prep coordinator an easy-to-follow, 15-step framework to help shape and guide an effective compliance program.

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

AHCA MEMBERS $179.00

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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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Restorative Nursing: A Win Win

Provider Magazine Article

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More people are allergic to cow’s milk than any other food.

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