Long ago and far away nursing centers provided care for frail, elderly patients. There were no IVs, TPN, Cpaps, peritoneal dialysis, active shooters or emergency evacuations. Our biggest threat back then was probably scabies! Those were the days where we “hunkered down”, took what hits us, brushed ourselves off and moved on. Today we are much more enlightened and we should all be thankful for that!

As we continue to soldier through the process of preventing unnecessary re-hospitalizations and nosocomial infections, AHCA/NCAL has partnered with Brown University’s Center for Gerontology to involve members in a proposed study that seeks to evaluate if enhanced environmental cleaning will reduce the rate of infection among patients in skilled nursing centers and ultimately reduce hospitalizations.

The National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel (NPUAP) in collaboration with Creighton University Health Sciences Continuing Education, recently hosted a webinar on Considerations for Bariatric Patients in Pressure Injuries and Wound Care. This program focused on the “how” and “why” we do what we do when caring for residents with a diagnosis of obesity as their needs often differ.

Winter weather can impact all aspects of our operations, from staff call-ins, to power outages, delayed food and service deliveries, and more. But what about falls? I’m not referring to resident falls, because hopefully when there is inclement weather you aren’t allowing your residents to be outdoors! I am referring to staff and visitor falls. This may shock you, but visitors and staff assume that your parking lot and walkways are going to be safe when they visit a loved one or punch in for their shift.

There's an old adage that “the first dog bite is free,” but the first fall is far from free! Visitor falls are a general liability issue and can be very costly—especially if there's a significant injury.

Here's some exciting news in our pursuit to identify the root cause of falls! A recent article published in Managed Health Care Connect identifies that people whose brains work the hardest when they try to walk and talk at the same time may have a higher risk of falling in the future than seniors who can do both of these with ease! To our knowledge, this is the first study to link brain activity changes that PRECEDE behavioral changes to risk of falls, per researcher Dr. Verghese.

I don’t know about you but I don’t like small appliances that only do one task. Don’t buy me an appliance if it isn’t multi-functional or I'll return it! So why should reports be any different?

As with anything in life, there is good news and bad news about reports. First, the bad news. We have more reports that tell us more about our centers than we sometimes care to know. CASPER, PB&J, Quality Measures, 5-star, wound logs, fall logs, pharmacy, 24 hour, RUGs/PPS/MDS, weight loss, rehospitalizations, infection control...the list just goes on and on!

Falls, falls, falls. Definitely risky business right? But why, since most residents who fall in our centers are the ones who fell in the community and at home, before coming to our communities? It's no surprise that if a fall occurred before admission that falls will occur again. Understanding that we may not be able to prevent all falls or injuries, how do we manage family expectations?