TIER 1: Support Innovators

Comprehensive person-directed care education for all team members, including leadership, grounded in high-quality, evidence-based “culture change” programs (e.g., those rooted in Pioneer Network principles and offered by the Eden Alternative, Live Oak Regenerative Community, Green House Project and EmpowerED Education, Action PACT Households, EduCatering & the Artifacts of Culture Change, Quality Improvement Organization/Veterans Health Administration HATCh training, PHI Coaching Supervision and other successful approaches).

Joanne Rader of The EINSTEIN Option, Carmen Bowman Edu-Catering and Kim McRae of Culture Change Network of Georgia speak about Tier 1 of the EINSTEIN Option.

  • Leadership-focused training that includes a strong emphasis on how to improve economic equity through pay raises and bonuses that are tied to performance, promotions, and approaches to providing opportunities for advancement and honing of skills.

  • Clinical care aligned with the “4 M’s” of age-friendly health systems (what Matters most to the individual; Medications; Mobility; Mentation), where person-directed plans are goal concordant.

  • Clinical and QAPI (Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement) interdisciplinary training led by certified medical directors with competencies in geriatrics and post-acute and long-term care medicine.

  • Resident, Family, and Community Advisory Councils (RFCACs) created to serve as a link to the wider community and to the Governing Board of participating residences.

  • Outcomes tracking that includes resident experience of care and quality of life metrics, person-directed care metrics, analysis of select MDS-based quality metrics, dementia care metrics, leadership style metrics, interdisciplinary team-assessments of progress and barriers in shifting to person-directed geriatrics care, as well as tracking of financial impact.

  • Collaborative discussions for federal and state surveyors and providers illustrating the differences between institutional task-based care and person-directed practices that promote quality of life and well-being.

    photo credit: PHI