5th Online Expo features major LTC topics

The joke for a little while now has been that the McKnight’s Online Expo can improve in the culinary department. For example, we don’t deliver cookies or other sweet treats to attendees’ desks during the event.

But between chuckles, know this: In their zeal to keep adding new, exciting features to the first long-term care online expo of its kind, McKnight’s organizers have looked into it.

After three years of repeatedly making it easier for long-term care professionals to take obtain free education and exposure to important exhibits, the McKnight’s Online Expo is back for more. This year’s edition will be held March 24-25 — in the place of your choosing, of course.

Anywhere you can power up your computer, you can access the Online Expo and all if its benefits. They include five hour-long sessions on hot topics of the day, each worth one continuing education credit that can be obtained for free.

There is also an interactive virtual exhibit hall where visitors can obtain personalized information from representatives of nearly 20 top companies. Attendees can wander in and out with the click of a mouse—and without the hassle of buying airplane tickets, making hotel reservations or even packing a special set of clothes.

The only thing one needs to take part in the innovative event is a computer with a sufficient Internet connection, and advance registration. The latter is free and now underway at www.mcknights.com/expo.
Industry giants

Leading off the Expo at 10 a.m. (EDT) March 24 will be a session on quality. Researcher Margaret Wylde, Ph.D., president and CEO of the ProMatura Group, will lead “Getting from satisfied to very satisfied residents.”

“Very satisfied residents are four times more likely than satisfied residents to recommend their communities,” Wylde notes.

Her session will discuss how attendees can attain “very satisfied” status with more residents. It also will answer strategy questions, such as which has a greater influence on resident satisfaction —policies, programming and personnel or size, structure and other physical attributes.

Each expo session will feature a live, interactive Q&A opportunity with attendees at the end.

All sessions also will remain in an online archive where they can be accessed for 60 days after the event.

At 11:30 a.m. (EDT), McKnight’s “Ask the Expert” wound-care columnist Donna Sardina will lead attendees in “Becoming a provider of excellence in wound care.”

“We’ll look at common mistakes made in bedside skin and wound management, and suggest innovative interventions to help providers step above the rest of the pack,” says Sardina, co-founder and owner of the Wound Care Education Institute.

She said she also plans to cover new guidelines, best practices, the MDS 3.0 skin section, tissue tolerance testing and more.

Finishing the first-day sessions will be “The prognosis for lending,” at 1 p.m. (EDT), led by Michael Hargrave, vice president of the NIC Market Area Profiles data and analysis service. He’ll provide updates on fourth-quarter nursing home and assisted living performances gleaned from his nationwide database, as well as other economic indicators.

“The audience will come away with some insightful evidence that can help them in setting their strategy for 2010 and beyond,” Hargrave says.

The big one

Last year’s expo session on payment issues was the most popular. This year’s “Are you ready for changes in the MDS and RUGs?” which will again be led by top educator Leah Klusch, also figures to be extremely well attended. It will take place at 11 a.m. (EDT) March 25, just a week after initial invitation-only training for MDS 3.0 will have taken place in Baltimore.

“Senior operations professionals need to become more aware of the 3.0 process than they were of the 2.0 process; it usually was delegated to nurses,” says Klusch, executive director of the Alliance Training Center. “Now, the risks are too high with payment changes, reliance on ADL coding, and regulatory and audit activity being totally database-driven.”

One of the nation’s foremost experts on information technology in long-term care, Peter Kress, will lead the final session. “Ways to capitalize on new technologies,” will begin promptly at 1 p.m. (EDT) March 25.

“We’ll describe scenarios and roadmaps for adapting your technology strategy to the ‘new’ realities” of modern device and technology use, said Kress, vice president and CIO of ACS Retirement-Life Communities.

Attendees might not get a cookie for attending a session, but they definitely will get plenty of food for thought, points out McKnight’s Editorial Director John O’Connor, who will moderate two of the educational webcasts.

“It is all ‘upside’ to attending a McKnight’s Online Expo,” O’Connor notes. “It’s all there for you, and you don’t have to leave the office for days to get it.”

Thousands of past attendees have agreed and many more are expected to add to that total come March 24-25.