Governor Parkinson to speak at 2011 IHCA Convention and Expo

The IHCA is pleased to announce that Kansas Governor Mark Parkinson, the next president and Chief Executive Officer of the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL), will serve as the keynote speaker at the 2011 IHCA Convention and Expo!

Governor Parkinson has been an owner and operator of long term care facilities for over 15 years, both as the Chief Executive Officer of Ad Astra Development, LLC, in Olathe, Kansas and as Chairman of the Board, founder and developer of Allen Park, Inc., Allen Park Two, Inc., and Allen Park Three, Inc. Under his leadership, he has helped develop ten separate facilities in Kansas and Missouri. His facilities include hundreds of rooms for skilled nursing, assisted living and dementia-related care, giving him a broad background in the continuum of care.

Be on the lookout for more exciting updates about the 2011 IHCA Convention and Expo that will take place May 10-12 at the Indiana Convention Center! If you have any questions, please contact Kate Vaulter at kvaulter@ihca.org or 317-616-9002.

NCCDP Alzheimer's Dementia Staff Education Week

For the third year, the National Council of Certified Dementia Practitioners is offering The National Council of Certified Dementia Practitioners Alzheimer’s and Dementia Staff Education Week February 14th to the 21st Tool Kit. The Tool Kit is free and available at www.nccdp.org. The tool kit includes many free Power Point in-services for download beginning November 15th to March 1st 2011. Each in-service is designed to be taught in 30 minutes to health care professionals and front line staff.

The Tool Kit and the declaration by the NCCDP Alzheimer's and Dementia Staff Education Week February 14th to the 21st was developed to bring national and international awareness to the importance of providing comprehensive dementia education by means of face to face interactive classroom environment to all healthcare professionals and line staff and to go above and beyond the minimum state requirements regarding dementia education.

Currently there are no national standards for dementia education. The regulations are different from state to state. The NCCDP recommends at minimum an initial 8 hours of dementia education to all staff. Throughout the year, additional dementia education should be provided that incorporates new advances, culture change and innovative ideas.

In addition to facilitating the Train the Trainer programs, The NCCDP promotes dementia education and certification of all staff who qualify as Certified Dementia Practitioners (CDP®). The NCCDP recommends that at minimum there should be one Certified Dementia Practitioner® per shift. The NCCDP recommends a trained and certified Alzheimer’s and dementia instructor by the NCCDP to utilize up to date NCCDP training materials.

The NCCDP recognizes the importance of educated and certified dementia unit managers and certifying the Dementia Unit Manager as Certified Dementia Care Manager (CDCM®).

Dementia Unit Managers report that they have received little training as a Dementia Unit Manager.

Front Line First Responders and Law Enforcement need comprehensive Dementia training and the NCCDP provides Alzheimer’s and Dementia training to First Responder and Law Enforcement educators and certification as Certified First Responder Dementia Trainer®.

The free tool kit includes:

• Free Power Point In-services (Many topics) for Health Care Staff which includes pre test, post tests, hand outs, answers, in-service evaluation
  and in-service certificates.
• Nurse Educator of the Year Nomination Forms
• Nomination Forms for NCCDP Alzheimer’s and Dementia Staff Education Week Contest
• Proclamations for Senators and Mayor
• Letters to the Editors Promoting Your Program
• 97 Ways to Promote Alzheimer’s and Dementia Staff Education Week 2011
• Resources and Important Web Sites

The National Council of Certified Dementia Practitioners®, LLC was formed in 2001 by a group of professionals with varying work and personal experiences in the field of dementia care. The Council was formed to promote standards of excellence in dementia and Alzheimer's education to professionals and other caregivers who provide services to dementia clients. As the number of dementia cases continues to increase nationally and worldwide, there is a great necessity to insure that care givers are well trained to provide appropriate, competent, and sensitive direct care and support for the dementia patient. The goal of the Council is to develop and encourage comprehensive standards of excellence in the health care profession and delivery of dementia care.

Women and Smoking: An Innovative Smoking Prevention Strategy

Presented by:
Anna McDaniel, DNS, RN, FAAN

Chancellor's Professor & Associate Dean

IU School of Nursing

Professor, Health Informatics

IU School of Informatics

Wednesday, November 24, 2010 at 8:15 a.m.

Joseph Walther Hall Auditorium (R3 Rm 203)

908 West Walnut Street

IUPUI

For more information, please contact:

Tina Darling at tdarling@iupui.edu

About the Lecturer:

Dr. McDaniel focuses her research on using technology for cancer prevention and control, specifically the treatment of nicotine dependence. Using interactive technology to deliver theoretically sound health education empowers consumers to adopt a tobacco-free lifestyle. Dr. McDaniel is working with Gabriel Interactive, an Indianapolis computer gaming company, to develop "The Ocean's Secret," an anti-smoking video game targeted specifically at younger girls. The primary outcome is an effective tool for teaching girls about the dangers of smoking while engaging in a safe, fun activity. By playing the game, young girls will discovery that they have the power to become stronger, healthier women by remaining smoke-free. Dr. McDaniel earned her BSN and MA at Ball State University and has her DNS at Indiana University.

IHCA is conducting a online survey as a follow-up study to the survey on the Recruitment and Retention of Indiana LTC workers

Follow-up Online Survey to the Survey of the Recruitment and Retention of Indiana LTC Workers

Your facility is invited to take part in an online survey as a follow up of the Survey on Recruitment and Retention of Indiana’s Long Term Care Workforce. Your employee was selected to participate in the online survey because of his or her practical experience working in long term care. Participation in the survey is Confidential.

Click here to take the survey.

The online survey should Only be Completed and forwarded to employees in the following classifications:

• Director of Nursing
• Administrative Registered Nurse
• Staff Registered Nurse
• Licensed Nurse Practitioner
• Certified Nurse Assistant

*Individuals who participated in the focus group study should not complete this online survey.

Background Information:
The purpose of this study is to further examine and develop information on the recruitment and retention of long term care workers. The information gathered here will be broken-down and analyzed; the analysis of that data will then be compared to the responses gained from the initial survey mentioned above. We will also analyze information as it relates to employee engagement, social identity, and general efficacy.

Procedures:
If you agree to be in this study, you will be asked to participate in the online survey and:

• Complete a demographic general questionnaire
• Complete an employee engagement survey
• Complete a social identity survey
• Complete a general efficacy survey
• Complete three open-ended questions

The survey will take about 15 minutes to complete.

Voluntary Nature of the Study:
Your participation in this study is voluntary. This means that everyone will respect your decision of whether or not you want to be in the study. If you decide to join the study now, you can still change your mind during the study. If you feel stressed during the study you may stop at any time. You may skip any questions that you feel are too personal.

Risks and Benefits of Being in the Study:
There are no foreseeable risks associated with this study. The associated benefit to you, for taking part in this study, is that you are providing information for policymakers, who in turn help influence decision making as it relates to policies, education, and training in long term care.

Confidentiality:
Any information you provide will be kept anonymous. Only group data will be reported in publications. The researcher will not use your information for purposes outside of this research project. In addition, the researcher will not include your name or anything else that could identify you in any reports of the study.

Submitting Completed Survey:
Surveys Must be completed online. After completing the survey via the online process, you may email the survey by clicking Submit by Email tab.

Completed surveys may also be faxed to: 877-298-3749 or mailed to: Dorothy Henry, One N. Capitol Avenue, Suite 100, Indianapolis, IN. 46204

Contacts and Questions:
If you have questions regarding this survey, you may contact the researcher via (317) 616-9028 or dhenry@ihca.org.

IHCA Announces New President

The Indiana Health Care Association is pleased to announce its new President. Scott Tittle takes over for outgoing President Steve Smith.

Mr. Tittle comes to the Association from Krieg DeVault's Government Affairs, Health Care, and Business Practice Groups. He counsels clients on all aspects of government relations, including the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and health care, regulatory and business legal matters.

Mr. Tittle previously served as Health Care Policy Director to Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels where he was responsible for executing the Governor's health care initiatives through the Indiana General Assembly and the State's health-related agencies.

Survey on the Recruitment and Retention of Indiana's Long Term Care Workers

View the results of the IHCF and Indiana University's Survey on the Recruitment and Retention of Indiana's Long Term Care Workers here.

Letter to the Editor

Letter to the Editor
Stephen A. Smith
President, Indiana Health Care Association


The article entitled “Crisis of Care” that appeared in the Sunday, March 7th edition of your paper suggested the care provided in each of Indiana’s for-profit nursing homes was suspect, due entirely to their motivation to achieve an economic gain. IHCA agrees that there is a “crisis of care” in Indiana nursing homes, but implying that the “for-profit” nature of the majority of the providers engaged in providing this type of service is the cause is simply misleading to your readers. The fact that 52 Indiana facilities appeared on the GAO list of poorest performing nursing homes should be a call to action for all stakeholders, not just the for-profit nursing home operators and ownership groups.

What if the “crisis” being described in your story referred to education and not to nursing home care? If you were the parent of a student who was in a class that had the highest failure rate, lowest graduation rate, or lowest test scores of any school system in the country, you would not immediately assume that all of the students were failing, you would assume that the system was failing the students. You would also not assume that the issue would be resolved by providing fewer resources to the failing schools or limiting their options to resolving the issue. However, this is exactly what it taking place in Indiana nursing homes.

For-profit nursing homes in Indiana serve a higher proportion of low-income patients than non-profit nursing homes and are reimbursed less for providing that care. In fact, approximately two-thirds of residents of for-profit nursing homes in Indiana utilize Medicaid to pay for their care. In addition, for every 100 nursing home residents who utilize the Medicaid program to pay for nursing home care in Indiana, 89 are residents of for-profit nursing homes. Medicaid reimbursement currently falls short of meeting costs for these residents by an average of $7/day. In part this is due to an arcane and complex reimbursement system that limits the amount a nursing home can be reimbursed for staff costs, exactly the issue that was cited as the core of the “crisis of care”.

These financial conditions contribute significantly to Indiana having turnover rates for nurses and certified nursing assistants (CNA) that far exceed the national average. Over 90% of all Indiana CNAs change jobs – on average – each year. This undoubtedly has an impact on patient care, but finding a direct solution to this problem will not occur until all stakeholders agree that staff turnover is the real issue to improving the quality of care, and offer real, common sense solutions to reduce staff turnover and improve staff retention. This will require a departure from the historical response of penalizing the providers of nursing home care. Reducing the amount of resources available to solve the problem will obviously not solve the problem.

Finding these solutions now is critical for two reasons. First of all, as we are constantly reminded in the press, the proportion of our population considered “seniors” will roughly double in the next 25 years, and will undoubtedly put an additional financial strain on the long-term care system in Indiana. Second, assuming a staff-to-patient ratio of roughly 1:1, there are over 40,000 Hoosiers employed by nursing homes statewide, a total that now exceeds the number of employees in the state’s automobile industry. Without securing the financial future of these employees we will see a continued erosion of financial conditions in many areas of our state, especially in some rural areas where the local nursing home is one of the largest local employers and economic generators in the community.

There is a genuine crisis of care in Indiana nursing homes, and this is most obvious to the nursing home owners and operators. To focus entirely on for-profit nursing homes ignores the symptoms of the problem and places blame disproportionately on one of the many stakeholders in the process. All stakeholders must be held accountable in order for real reform of the system to occur.

The vast majority of Indiana nursing homes provide a loving, caring environment that maintains or improves the quality of life of their residents. The best way for someone to choose – or evaluate – an Indiana nursing home is to visit one. According to AARP, “The most important element of the selection process, according to the experts, is a personal visit—preferably more than one—to any nursing home you’re considering”. Medicare’s “Nursing Home Checklist” is based almost entirely on a personal visit, and makes no mention of Five-Star ratings, GAO reports, or state survey results as part of their evaluation criteria. The reason is simple: People are the most important part of nursing home care and you can’t experience the people without experiencing the place.