Sandra Simpson is the Director of Nursing for Jefferson County Nursing Home in Fayette, Mississippi. She has been there 18 years and loves what she does. She, her staff and her residents also love that their facility has maintained a composite score of less than 6.00 for most of the last four years.
Sandra Simpson, Director of Nursing
Why does that matter? The nursing home composite score is a quality of care indicator based on 13 quality measures established by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Quality measures include, for example, percentage of residents with pressure ulcers, who experience a fall and who express pain. The better a facility scores on the measure, the lower the composite score will be.
The national goal for nursing homes across the country is to achieve a composite score of 6.00 or less. Because of their success, Jefferson County Nursing Home has been named a Peer Coach by atom Alliance to help other nursing homes in their area improve their score.
Simpson shares how they do it.
“Every morning we huddle with all departments and we talk about areas of concern.”
For example, they had one resident whose behavior was negatively affecting other residents. During the huddle, Simpson says, “We advised everyone to help. We set a plan of care to focus on planned activities.”
So whenever the resident began to disturb others around him, they provided him with a diversion, such as drawing pictures or taking a walk with a staff member. Eventually, they were even able to reduce his medication. They do this with every resident, which results in decreased composite scores for the facility and increased patient-centered care for the resident.
“We take a little bit at a time and just focus on it,” Simpson says. “It takes everyone. It’s not an easy task, but if everyone is determined to make it work, we make it work.”
They also include families and residents in the process of care planning. Some high functioning residents even help with the lower functioning residents.
“We involve everyone. All of us are working as a team.”
Learn more about how atom Alliance partners with nursing homes across five states to improve quality of care.
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