Starting down the path...
Practice WednesdayPosted on Wed Aug 17, 2005 at 06:21:20 AM EST
And now for "Practice Wednesday"....
Last week I had the privilege of spending a day at St. Camillus in Whitinsville, MA to learn from Bill Graves and his team about how they are implementing culture change principles in their community. They have been on the path for a little over a year and have made great strides in that time, having implemented consistent assignment and a gentle awakenings practice whereby elders wake up when they feel like it.
St. Camillus also involved direct care workers and elders in changing their approach to honoring the lives of elders who die in their community. In the spirit of asking the question, "What can we STOP doing right now," they did away with the dehumanizing practice of "shrouding" those who die and removing the body via the backdoor (it is dehumanizing for both the deceased and the staff who must prepare the body). The elders and staff came up with the idea to make a quilt that is now draped over the elder as a staff member accompanies the body out the front door.
I sat in on two neighborhood meetings and listened as staff discussed ways to address scheduling issues and as elders described ways in which they would like to be more involved in decision-making.
In previous years the management would organize two big organization-wide cookouts a year. They now have smaller cookouts for neighborhoods on a regular basis and by all accounts both staff and elders like the "smallness" better.
The architectural layout of St. Camillus is very conducive to retrofitting the facility for a household model approach.
The facility has two, two-story wings (seen at the bottom of the Google map image), with each floor housing 40 long-stay residents (with 20 in each half, for a total of 80 long-stay beds). St. Camillus provides care for short-stay folks in the longer horizontal wing. They are considering getting rid of the nursing stations that bridge the long-stay wings, but I shared with Bill how they might want to explore knocking down some internal walls and making each wing a stand alone household.
Bill and his team seemed very intrigued by the household idea, and I'm really happy that he and Sandy Godfrey (the Director of Nursing) will be attending the next Pioneer Institute in New York (September 12-13) where they will learn firsthand what's involved in creating households.
The staff at St. Camillus all seem committed to taking the process of culture change to the next level, and they realize they still have lots of work to do. I'm looking forward to following their progress along the way and having the Pioneer Network help in whatever way we can.
Last week I had the privilege of spending a day at St. Camillus in Whitinsville, MA to learn from Bill Graves and his team about how they are implementing culture change principles in their community. They have been on the path for a little over a year and have made great strides in that time, having implemented consistent assignment and a gentle awakenings practice whereby elders wake up when they feel like it.
St. Camillus also involved direct care workers and elders in changing their approach to honoring the lives of elders who die in their community. In the spirit of asking the question, "What can we STOP doing right now," they did away with the dehumanizing practice of "shrouding" those who die and removing the body via the backdoor (it is dehumanizing for both the deceased and the staff who must prepare the body). The elders and staff came up with the idea to make a quilt that is now draped over the elder as a staff member accompanies the body out the front door.
I sat in on two neighborhood meetings and listened as staff discussed ways to address scheduling issues and as elders described ways in which they would like to be more involved in decision-making.
In previous years the management would organize two big organization-wide cookouts a year. They now have smaller cookouts for neighborhoods on a regular basis and by all accounts both staff and elders like the "smallness" better.
The architectural layout of St. Camillus is very conducive to retrofitting the facility for a household model approach.
The facility has two, two-story wings (seen at the bottom of the Google map image), with each floor housing 40 long-stay residents (with 20 in each half, for a total of 80 long-stay beds). St. Camillus provides care for short-stay folks in the longer horizontal wing. They are considering getting rid of the nursing stations that bridge the long-stay wings, but I shared with Bill how they might want to explore knocking down some internal walls and making each wing a stand alone household.
Bill and his team seemed very intrigued by the household idea, and I'm really happy that he and Sandy Godfrey (the Director of Nursing) will be attending the next Pioneer Institute in New York (September 12-13) where they will learn firsthand what's involved in creating households.
The staff at St. Camillus all seem committed to taking the process of culture change to the next level, and they realize they still have lots of work to do. I'm looking forward to following their progress along the way and having the Pioneer Network help in whatever way we can.
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