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I believe one of the best ways to enhance the quality of care in nursing homes around the world is to share our best practices. Today I’m featuring programs that recently won Best Practice Awards in North Carolina.
These awards are given out by the Friends of Residents in Long Term Care. They recognize nursing home programs that promote person-centered values, support the rights of residents, and improve quality of care.
I’m including a link to the website of each nursing home. This allows you to contact the facilities directly for more information about their award-winning programs.
Undisturbed Sleep And Active Days
Historically, nursing homes are not known as the ideal place to get a good night’s sleep. Yet, interrupted sleep can lead to all sorts of adverse effects. These include irritability, confusion, decreased daytime alertness, and depression.
Eckerd Living Center in Highlands, North Carolina took on the challenge of improving the quality of sleep for their residents. Several of their approaches are standard care in many nursing homes. These include:
- Schedule tasks such as vital signs, treatments, and medication administration to minimize sleep interruptions.
- Increase daytime activities such as exercise programs.
- Avoid excessive daytime napping.
- Provide overnight incontinence products to minimize night-time disruptions for incontinence care.
- Increase exposure to sunlight during the day and provide adequate levels of darkness at night to promote normal circadian rhythms.
In addition, Eckerd Living Center came up with other interventions that I believe are quite innovative:
- Wherever possible, match roommates according to their sleep habits.
- Utilize noise meters to alert the night staff if noise levels become excessive.
- Provide tabletop lights that mimic sunlight.
- Offer wrist monitors to assess the quality of a resident’s sleep.
- Provide headphones for late-night television watchers.
- Equip resident rooms with amber overbed lights.
- Provide snake lights for staff to wear around their necks during necessary night-times cares (rather than turning on room lights).
If you would like more tips to help your residents sleep well at night, please check out this previous article.
Grant A Dream
United Church Homes & Services has a long history of granting special dreams for residents of their care facilities in North Carolina and Virginia. These dreams usually involve reliving a pleasant experience from their past or fulfilling something on their bucket list.
These are just a few of the dreams that the group has fulfilled:
- 91-year-old Dot Hill experienced indoor skydiving for the first time.
- A violin was gifted to 92-year-old Mac Welborn who hadn’t had an opportunity to play the instrument in many years.
- Stan Johnson’s dream of attending a Tidewater Tides baseball game became a reality.
- Barbara Taylor fulfilled her dream of riding a horse again, something she hadn’t done in over 20 years.
- 89-year-old former cheerleader Pauline Heafner dreamed of cheering again. Her dream came true when varsity cheerleaders from her former high school paid her a visit.
What struck me as I read these stories was the simplicity of the residents’ dreams. Nobody asked for anything extravagant.
I hope every nursing home develops something similar to Grant A Dream. If you already offer this program, please let me know in the comment section. I would love to feature your organization in a future article.
Quest Upstream
A focus of Carol Woods Retirement Community is to support people living with dementia in an inclusive setting. This is in contrast to the tradition of many facilities that segregate some residents on locked memory care units.
One unique feature of their Quest Upstream program is the team approach to problem-solving, planning, and goal-setting in each residential neighborhood. Teams include staff from different departments & shifts, residents with and without a diagnosis of dementia, family members, and a researcher. Because of this, approaches vary between neighborhoods. It’s not a one-size-fits-all philosophy.
Intending to “raise awareness, challenge traditional thinking and approaches to dementia care and support, and offer an alternative that is more humane and life-affirming”, Quest Upstream is a work in progress. You can follow their journey as it unfolds by reading their blog.
Have you heard about these other award-winning nursing home programs?
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