"WELLSPRING - BEACON INSTITIUTE NURSING HOME CULTURE CHANGE" PROGRAM
Charlotte Eliopoulos - Wellspring Program Director
Isabella Firth - President Beacon Institute
Columbia, Maryland, USA.
Program Description
"Wellspring Innovative Solutions for Integrated Health Care, a coalition of 11 nursing homes in Wisconsin, began in 1994 to work together to share information about how to improve quality. The goal is to embed a resident-centered, continuous quality improvement process into nursing homes by improving skills, knowledge and collaboration among staff."
-Guide to Nursing Home Culture Change source:ncsl.org
"A transformation is taking place in America's nursing homes. This movement, termed culture change, is promoting a new way of thinking about quality of care and quality of life for nursing home residents. After decades of being reactionary in their method of delivering services, nursing homes are now being proactive in defining components of care, environment, and life that are unique to high quality long term care."
lifespan-network.org
The “Wellspring – Beacon Institute Nursing Home Culture Change” Program provides training, support and guidance to nursing homes so that they can learn how to improve geriatric care and promote an elderly nursing care culture change.
New innovative ways of geriatric care are taught increasing the skills of front line staff such as CNA’s along with nursing home leaders and managers. The end result hopes to empower not only geriatric care staff to more effectively care for elderly residents but also senior residents themselves by creating high standards and quality of life.
Nursing consultants oversee the program and provide program guidance and support. Nursing facilities taking part in the program are able to network with each other and share their experiences, provide support on how the program is working for each facility, including any challenges that they may have.
The “Wellspring – Beacon Institute Nursing Home Culture Change” Program helps nursing homes learn how to create culture change by:
- Establishing a culture of caring - an environment where senior residents are empowered to direct and participate in their own care and staff is empowered to use their skills and talents. This is based on the belief that an empowered nursing home workforce increases senior resident and employee satisfaction and reduces staff turnoverImproving clinical competencies - to assure senior services are based on best practices
- Creating a home for senior residents - through home-like modifications of current institutionalized environment.
- Equipping leaders to initiate, guide, and sustain changes - to achieve improvement goals and improve senior resident and staff satisfaction
Additional training programs to improve elderly nursing care are available including:
Culture Change 101 - provides a basic overview of culture change and the “Wellspring Beacon Institute” Program including factors that have led to the challenges faced by today’s nursing homes, models, stages, and core components of culture change.
Creating Home in the Nursing Home: Leading Culture Change - Administrative and managerial staff’s can facilitate or create obstacles for culture change. Specific issues organizations encounter when implementing the “Wellspring Beacon Institute” Program are addressed.
Culture Change Nurse Coordinator Preparation - equips nurses to play a leadership role in assisting with the transformation of their nursing homes.
source: lifespan-network.org
