Nursing Home Care Flashcards
2 MC kinds of institutional long term care?
- nursing homes
- assisted living
What is a skilled nursing facility?
- house persons requring care and supervision of a skilled nurse
- licensed and regulated by state agencies with considerable federal control through medicare and medicaid guidelines
- admission is based on case by case basis
- mostly staffed w/ CNAs
- few licensed nurses are present to conduct assessments, distribute meds, supervise CNAs, communicate w/ providers, and admin tx
What are assisted living facilities?
- diverse
- can include small “mom and pop” homes caring for as few as 2 residents
- clusters of small homes w/ central admin
- larger freestanding facilities that look a lot like nursing homes
- buildings or wings w/in multilevel campus
Characteristics of long term care residents?
- tend to be old, sick, poor and alone
- mean age: 78-85
- alzheimers
- multi-infarct dementia
- severe chronic heart disease
- amputation
- COPD
- widows
- no kids
- low income
Diff in short and long stay care?
- short stay: for terminal care or rehab
- ## long stay: primarily medical problems, dementia
Who pays for nursing homes?
- after medicare runs out:
47% medicaid
45% private pay
Who pays for assisted living?
- neither medicare nor medicaid pays for most assisted living
- ends up private pay
Job of the medical director?
- reqd for all SNFs
- ensures provider care, addresses legal and medical needs
- quality improvement
- committees susch as infection control, pharm, and utilization review
- reviews incident reports
- assists w/ development of policies and procedures for residents and staff
- oversees health program for employees
- conducts educational programs for employees, residents and families
- acts as spokesperson for facility in community and w/ regulatory and other health care agencies
What does function oriented care mean?
- maximize what each pt can do independently
- rehab mind set
- assessment and care plan for fxnl status, establish prognosis, identify specific fxnl objectives and time frame to accomplish these
- monitor fxnl status improvement, preventing iatrogenic consequences
- plan a d/c date if possible - when not likely, strategies to maintain fxnl status should be developed
Are use of restraints helpful?
Not really
- increase agitation
- rarely prevent falls or injuries
- constitute an unjustified infringement on resident autonomy
- types of restraints:
vest, wrist, ankle, chairs w/ locking lap trays, wrist restraints, safety belts, bed rails
Alternatives to restraints?
- increased involvement for residents in structured activities
- assisted daily ambulation, regular toileting
- active listening
- therapeutic touch
- behavior modification
- search for physiologic causes of agitation: pain, constipation, infection
- recliner chairs
- carpeted floors
- lower beds
- motion detectors and position monitors
Why are long term care residents considered medically underserved pop?
- lack personal relationships and individualized attention that characterize the best primary medical care
- logistics of traveling to long term care facility
- decisions are made via telephone
- medicare and medicaid reimbursements are low
- high resident and staff turnover
Upside of having a resident w/ an involved family?
- tend to receive more staff attention and have medical problems detected earlier
Provider’s role in taking care of pt in longterm care and dealing w/ the family?
-take time to meet w/ family
- anticipate future events and discuss in advance w/ family
- learn as much as possible about family dynamics, anticipate conflicts - on admission, when there is a major status change
- advanced directives
- don’t resucitate
- end of life measures
- withholding txs:
feeding tubes, abx for fever, whether to hosp. or not
PA reimbursement in skilled nursing facility and nursing facility?
- all services PA is legally authorized to provide that would have been covered if provided personally by a physician
- reimbursement rate:
85% of physician’s fee schedule