Dignity Award Gold won by Archie Hendricks Sr. SNF

A skilled nursing facility that sits on a Native American reservation has taken Gold in the Dignity category for the third annual McKnight’s Excellence in Technology Awards.

Archie Hendricks Sr. Skilled Nursing Facility, located on the Tohono O’odham Reservation in southern Arizona, created a television station to help residents “feel part of the nursing home community and their native community,” according to William Olivares, IT technician at Archie Hendricks.

The facility broadcasts culturally relevant and tribal-specific events to all TV sets throughout the center. These broadcasts are recorded in the facility and also remotely. Staff researched and developed methods that allowed the facility to live-stream community and cultural events happening in community, in order to help residents feel connected. The facility also has used iPads to enable long-distance visits with another Native American skilled nursing facility.

The Silver Award went to Vetter Health Services for its work with It’s Never 2 Late. Vetter has 30 long-term care facilities, 22 of which are in Nebraska. The Vetter communities are equipped with 35 iN2L systems, ranging from portable tablets, to 23-inch touchscreens on adaptive carts, to a behemoth 70-inch system in the therapy gym. Collectively, this has allowed more than 40,000 hours of resident engagement in the first half of 2014, system officials said.

Park Ridge Care Center in Shoreline, WA, took the Bronze award for its work with Cerner Corp.’s CareTracker, which it used to boost resident satisfaction levels and increase regulatory compliance to around 98%.

Certificates of Merit were given to Signature HealthCARE for its use of Smart Bed Technology made through Goodmark Medical and BAM Labs, and Centers Health Care in New York, which used Point RF Solution’s NoWander management system. Signature reported that using the beds created a 85.4% decrease in new pressure ulcer development during a 12-week study at three facilities. Centers Health reported that NoWander has not only increased resident safety, but made it easier to locate staff whose input is needed in a decision, and to find residents who need medication.

The award program is administered by McKnight’s and features a nationwide panel of independent judges. The sponsor is Tena.

The winners in each of the Tech Awards’ five categories are being announced in McKnight’s Daily Update this week.

Quality – Monday

Innovator – Tuesday

Transitions – Wednesday

Dignity – Thursday

High Tech/High Touch – Friday