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NDHC News
For Your Health: Reducing/Eliminating/Chair Alarms
NDHC is formulating a plan to reduce/eliminate all bed/chair alarms. We will be starting to decrease the number of bed/chair alarms in Long Term Care. This is one thing we are doing for a “culture change” in Long Term Care. Although everyone agrees that “culture change” is a nice idea (making nursing homes more home-like), it requires a process with time lines, protocols, and education for all staff at NDHC. By ‘all staff’ we mean all departments – not just Nursing. We will educate and update staff on a regular basis. We plan to reduce the alarms on a gradual basis and will determine at our weekly Falls meeting group whose will be eliminated. We will keep low beds, mats and body pillows in place for the comfort and safety of the residents. This "Culture Change" of reducing noise and alarms is something the Federal and State Government Surveyors are closely watching, and it will be mandatory in the future. NDHC is taking a proactive attitude on this issue, and is beginning to do this now. Any questions, feel free to call Carla Sletten RN, DON, NDHC at 701-587-6487 or carla.sletten@ndhc.net.
For Your Health: Health Care Reform by Pete Antonson
Health Care Reform. You can’t turn on the TV or radio without hearing about it on a daily basis. It could be easy to say the rhetoric is getting out of hand. Yet it is a very important issue and affects a significant piece of the economy.Is there room for improvement in our health system? Of course there is room for improvement. Do we need to throw the whole system out the door? Probably not. There are plenty of good things happening in health care in the United States and we need to preserve the good and improve the rest. Within the hospital industry of North Dakota, there are significant differences of opinion. Larger hospitals are paid differently than small hospitals. To adopt Medicare’s payment methodology would be bad for the urban hospitals. However rural hospitals are paid far better by Medicare than Blue Cross so they would be better off. My opinions are probably different than yours. This column is meant to be educational and not editorial, so I will refrain from putting them down. What is less controversial is that we are all affected by health care and health reform. I encourage you to be involved and learn about health care policy. Understand the potential impacts of changes. If you have strong ideas or opinions, share them with your representatives in Washington. They do listen and want to hear from us. We live in the greatest country in the world. With the freedom we have, responsibilities follow. Be involved, vote, listen, and learn.