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• Monday's AHFSA/CMS Office Hours Call

  • Start
    Monday, August 24, 2020
  •  
    4:00 PM (EDT)
  • End
    Tuesday, August 24, 2021
  •  
    5:00 PM (EDT)
  • Location
    Virtual Meeting

  Join us each Monday at 4:00 PM EST for an Office Hours with CMS call. This call is for SA only. Please log into the members only section for meeting information. 

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• Lessons Learned from COVID-19: The Green House Model Data and its Application to Nursing Homes

  • When
    Tuesday, September 29, 2020
  •  
    1:00 PM - 2:30 PM (EDT)
  • Location
    On Demand Webinar

  
  

  
  

  
         Susan Ryan 

  Bio:
  As the Senior Director of The Green House Project, Susan Ryan is a leader in the strategic development of innovative thinking and cultural paradigm shifts. With international speaking and project management experience, she has served as an integral part of the Green House team for over 12 years, and has led the team through key transitions, and the quest to grow with integrity. Susan offers a unique combination of skills in nursing, gerontology, Alzheimer’s and dementia and leadership development. She has a background in nursing, with over 30 years of experience serving elders.

  Presentation Synopsis:
  As COVID-19 ravaged its way across the country, nursing homes were hit particularly hard, with an estimated 45% of all US deaths occurring in long-term care environments. In addition, as facilities went on lockdown to prevent outside visitors in a quest to keep residents safe, the unintended consequence of social isolation became a significant issue. The Green House Project underwent a study commencing in late May that captured data among the roughly 300 homes across the country to better understand the experiences in those small house environments as compared to the traditional counterparts. Preliminary data shows a significant difference in the small house environments ability to mitigate the spread of the virus.

  Learning Objectives:

  • Explore the Green House COVID-19 data and its comparison to CMS data for all nursing homes.
  • Discover the ways the Green House homes achieved success in mitigating the spread of COVID-19 through the lens of the model’s core values.
  • ·Identify the best practices in managing and preventing the coronavirus in long-term care and how to apply them to skilled nursing facilities more broadly.
  • Small-house design, the Green House core values, and how they contributed to keeping elders safe, healthy, and connected via a sense of normalcy.

  Company Bio:
  Since 2003 when the first Green House homes opened in Tupelo, MS, The Green House® Project has sought as its mission the transformation of long-term care environments by creating real homes that provide a more meaningful living experience among those that live there. At its core, the initiative seeks to de-institutionalize, de-stigmatize, and humanize long-term care so that all elders are seen and valued as individuals of intrinsic worth. They envision these homes in every community as an affordable and accessible option for all, and where staff are also empowered and equipped to support the elders that live in the homes.

  
  

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• AHFSA Engagement Series - Quality Improvement Strategies for Surveying Infection Control

  • When
    Tuesday, October 20, 2020
  •  
    1:00 PM - 2:30 PM (EDT)
  • Location
    On Demand Webinar

  

  AHFSA Virtual Engagement Series On Demand Webinar 
  
  Title: Quality Improvement Strategies for Surveying Infection Control”
  Presenters: 
  Polly Weaver, State Operations Director
  Sharon Whitehead, Senior Medical Facility Surveyor
  Kristen Paulsen-Aguirre, Training Manager

  Company Bio:
  Healthcare Management Solutions, LLC (HMS) provides support to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and State Survey Agencies (SSAs) by:  1) conducting surveys of healthcare facilities, 2) management consulting to create efficiencies related to the survey process, and 3) IT assessment, support, and recommendations to facilitate survey scheduling and documentation. HMS management consultants are subject matter experts in SSA program administration; surveyor training, and SSA training program development; legal processes and review; compliance monitoring; quality assurance; survey processes; federal enforcement; application development; IT consulting; data analysis and reporting; CMS systems administration; and many other fields of expertise. On behalf of CMS and several state agencies, we perform approximately 800 surveys annually in multiple healthcare facility types such as nursing homes, dialysis facilities, hospices, organ transplant programs, intermediate care facilities for individuals with intellectual disabilities, and hospitals.

  
  

  Polly Weaver

  Polly Weaver is a Project Director for HMS who provides management consultation to state survey agencies by reviewing survey programs and making recommendations as directed by CMS. Ms. Weaver has over 20 years of experience at the management level in state government and has coordinated with stakeholders to review and revise policies and processes used in regulating a variety of health care providers. Previously, she was the Assistant Deputy Secretary for the Division of Health Quality Assurance, Agency for Health Care Administration, and the State Survey Agency Director for the State of Florida. There, Ms. Weaver was responsible for over 500 staff members and the associated management of all survey and certification activities, which encompassed over 30 different health care provider types. Ms. Weaver has a strong background in dementia care and co-chaired the Florida coalition to individualize dementia care in nursing homes with the Florida QIN-QIO. This role included development of intervention strategies for Florida facilities that had the highest antipsychotic use. Through her duties with the State of Florida, Ms. Weaver worked closely with CMS to facilitate development and consistent implementation of survey and certification processes. She also served as President of the Association of Health Facility Survey Agencies and worked closely with other states and CMS to facilitate improvements and consistency in implementing the survey and certification processes nationally.

  
  Kristen Paulsen-Aguirre, Surveyor III, BS, CTRS
  Kristen Paulsen-Aguirre has more than 15 years’ experience in healthcare, working in both the provider and regulatory sectors of the industry as a health educator and surveyor. She has designed and implemented targeted training programs for surveyors and has a broad background in quality improvement. Ms. Paulsen-Aguirre began her career offering direct services to elderly adults in LTC and participated in caregiver support activities. At HMS, she serves as the Health Facilities Surveyor Educator and is responsible for identifying surveyor training needs and creating, and implementing training programs targeted to meet identified needs.  Ms. Paulsen-Aguirre assesses trainings to determine their effectiveness and assigns them to surveyors when required or as directed. As part of the survey-specific management team, she also helps with issue resolution and quality improvement to ensure surveyors remain informed and educated while in the field. Ms. Paulsen-Aguirre has a Bachelor of Science in Recreation Management with a focus on Therapeutic Recreation and Gerontology and is a Certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist.

  
  Sharon Whitehead, RN, BSN

  Sharon Whitehead is a registered nurse with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and nearly 20 years of experience in healthcare. She has focused on quality improvement and compliance of federal and state regulations in long-term care (LTC) facilities, including pharmacy services for LTC. Ms. Whitehead served in multiple capacities for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services for 8 years, progressing from a Facility Advisory Nurse to Health and Senior Services Manager. She coordinated onsite state licensure inspections, recertification surveys, and complaint investigations of LTC facilities, reviewed and critiqued all complaint intakes for the region, and oversaw the work performance of a supervisory team plus professional surveyors and office support staff for one of the seven sections for LTC regulation regions in Missouri. At HMS, Ms. Whitehead has conducted multiple types of surveys in LTC facilities throughout the United States on behalf of CMS. She assesses and evaluates compliance with federal regulations for LTC facilities to advance the quality care of geriatric and disabled populations. And, most recently, Ms. Whitehead has been assigned to support the State Survey Agency Technical Assistance Team at HMS.

  Please visit the Members Only section to register for this event.

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