Therapists experience the same impact when facing the ghosts of predecessors in their own therapy departments. And when considering the spirits of old habits needing to be shifted by significant changes facing our post-acute care industry.
We all know that the strongest team members are not often the most vocal. They may be the quietest, working behind the scenes, but focused always with a plan in mind, and a smile on their face.
The National Association for the Support of Long-Term Care is currently enjoying its moment in the sun, in more ways than one.
When I ask rehab patients about the precipitating event that brought them to therapy, they can at least answer the question. Maybe they tripped on a zucchini vine, slipped on a grape in the grocery store or toppled off a bicycle while swerving to avoid a raccoon, but at least they know what happened. Not me.
With all the buzz, excitement, and, need I say, even moments of panic around the final rule and clarifications for the Patient Driven Payment Model (PDPM), we as an industry need to remain purposeful in our planning.
The cancer was extensive and had spread fast. As a result of this and after a multitude of hospital stays, he ended up in a skilled nursing facility in a small town in Kentucky.
In a culture that calls for more person-centered and person-directed care, we often have to caution our patients to not call themselves “safe,” before they are discharged out of our care.
I haven’t perched in a tree waiting for Bigfoot, or spent a morning with binoculars in a rowboat on Loch Ness. But I recently had a ringside seat for one of those elusive rehab therapy triumphs — the kind I always hear about, but had never personally witnessed.
In our post-acute world if we depend on basics alone, we limit ourselves in the specificity of measures we can achieve.
Dan Ciolek has spent some 30 years in long-term care, and though he’s become adept at quite a few topics in the field, one thing he’s still trying to make sense of is quality measures.
