Long-term post-acute care (LTPAC) is being involved more and more in HITECH Meaningful Use and other initiatives. Although we still cannot plan on incentive monies we will be involved because interconnectivity and transitions of care are important to LTPAC providers as it is good for patient coordination of care.
There are forces at work that require us to develop new strategies and tactics to market our programs, services and facilities. These forces, which include Medicare compensating providers for quality services, expansion of Medicare Managed Care, hospitals focusing on readmissions and difficult economic conditions, influence the behavior of referral sources and families who are making healthcare decisions.
The following strategies I’ve been developing for a client may help you deal with these new forces.
Angie (pseudonym) had been here a couple of weeks. Some staff noted that she had been here before. She propelled her wheelchair in the hallways and seemed to be making friends.
Last Wednesday Angie was having a bad day. She did not want to go to the dining room to get her breakfast or be content with a health shake. She wanted breakfast in her room and she and her nurse had words about it.
Social media. Those two words incite a range of reactions out of providers—from irritation to bewilderment, from confusion to acknowledgement. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest—there are so many social media tools out there, what’s a provider to do?
Lest we think that social networking is the exclusive domain of the young, consider these incredible statistics from the Pew Research Center:
“Change” is about the only constant in health and aging services these days. Leaders of long-term care organizations are confronted with a tightening fiscal environment, along with savvy customers who want more from the institutions where they may spend their final years. Your survival is likely to hinge on your ability to be a change leader, and to guide your staff toward creating a stronger, more customer service-oriented organization.
Larry (pseudonym) ate in the feed dining room when I came here. Though he was in a geri chair and had to be fed, he ate well and seemed to enjoy meals. He did not speak except for an occasional "Hi.” I was told he was in his early 60s and had Alzheimer's.
His wife Melody (pseudonym) explained he was diagnosed with an early onset form in his early 50s. Melody was very engaging, but I could see sadness in her eyes. Many times she talked about Larry's life before Alzheimer's when he and his brother ran a few area nursing homes.
Within the vast healthcare reform legislation, among the many new measures was the Hospital Readmission Reduction Program (the “HRRP”), which is set to become effective in fiscal year 2013 (assuming of course that it is not thrown out as part of any Supreme Court dissection
The Department of Health and Human Services posted online today for public comment an updated National Action Plan to eliminate healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), which the agency says have been reduced in hospitals since the plan was introduced in 2009.
The third and final phase of the National Action Plan, to initiate next summer, will focus on long-term care facilities.
Starting three years ago the list of notices announcing “going out of business” started to come across the fax, in the mail and through email. Phone numbers were discontinued and terms went from Net 30 with little or no deposit to upward of 100 percent upfront to even place an order.
As professionals in the long-term care industry review and digest this recent Office of Inspector General report, which argues nursing home emergency response plans often lack relevant information, a main point to remember is that written plans and procedures must be “operationalized” if there can be any expectation of effectiveness.
The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) announced this week that it has folded the Administration on Aging, the Office on Disability and the Administration on Developmental Disabilities into a new, single agency: the Administration for Community Living, or ACL.
To improve end-of-life care in nursing homes, appropriate quality measures should be created to “incentivize” providers and identify top performers, a group of researchers has argued in a new study.
