We at Basic American Comfort.com are happy every time to read that more and more the long-term care changes from an institutionalized industry where money and regulations seem to drive decisions, to a caring group of people taking care of others that need this in a human and respectful way. This can be attributed to a lot of people in the industry that think, innovate, work and care. We would like to point out two articles from last week that emphasize on this change in our industry, and we will make sure to keep bringing you these articles going forward.

From an article by Henry L. Davis in The Buffalo News:

Today, too many nursing homes offer a passionless, hospital-like service built for efficiency. It may have made sense decades ago, but now the homes turn people off, struggle with high employee turnover and continue to experience quality problems.

Against this backdrop, reformers in recent years have pushed for a radical rethinking of the long-term care system that’s become known as “culture change.”

A few nursing homes around the country have adopted some aspects of the movement. Now, advocates in Western New York want to turn culture change into a regionwide initiative, making this community the first in the United States to attempt a transformation in elder care on a large scale.

“If we continue to provide care and treat staff the way we currently do, we will have a crisis,” said Robert Meiss, chief executive of Beechwood Continuing Care in Getzville.

Beechwood is among more than a dozen nursing homes and other organizations, working with funding from the John R. Oishei Foundation, to pull together what’s being called the Western New York Alliance for Person-Centered Care.

The goal: Let their colleagues know there is a compelling alternative to business as usual and make it a reality.

“All people have ever known in the nursing home industry is the institutional model in which all choice and variation is removed,” Meiss said.

Culture change is a general term describing an assortment of different efforts that have one thing in common: The priority is care for the elderly, not the demands of the institution.

Sounds simple, except that it calls for an industry resistant to change to reorganize completely from the top down.

“This doesn’t require a fancy proton beam scanner or a wonder drug. It’s about cooperating to do the things we know are right. The problem is we have a system that devalues imagination. You will never find in the same sentence the words imagination and long-term care,” said Dr. Bill Thomas, a leading authority on elder care.

Click here to read the full article.

And from the Denver Post a small excerpt of an article by Michael Booth:

As a generation of retirees resists the fate of nursing homes they’ve grown to dread, supporters of a cultural revolution say they are reforming an industry long tainted by images of neglected patients languishing on soiled sheets.

The overhaul is happening room by room, from sprawling state-run homes to transformed ranch houses hidden on suburban cul-de-sacs.

Reforms in long-term nursing care will likely quicken in the next year as Colorado begins a “pay-for-performance” plan, sending higher Medicaid payments to homes that make changes ranging from reducing bed sores to giving residents a peanut-butter sandwich on demand.

“We’re at that tipping point for a major cultural change in nursing homes,” said Shelley Hitt, the ombudsman who is the independent advocate for better patient care in the state’s 212 nursing homes. “Our standards are higher; our expectations are higher. Twenty years ago, it was just a place where sick, older people went to die.”

Critics of traditional nursing- home care are not ready to declare lasting success. Reforms at a given home too often depend on the energy and dedication of a few key staff members, and those changes are difficult to replicate in more than 16,000 nursing homes nationwide.

And to read the full article click here.