Infection Prevention and Nurse Aide Training Program Project

In our continued efforts to improve the care and service we offer to our guests (patients), we have started some initiatives.

BACKGROUND

As we move forward after the COVID pandemic, we took a moment to look back at our experiences and lessons learned during that time. Infection prevention and control has always been of primary importance to us, but we were able to identify improvement opportunities that would improve the day to day activities of our patients as well as the working environment and development for our staff.

IMPROVEMENT INITIATIVES

Initiative #1 – Infection Prevention

We understood that it was important to take some of the lessons learned during the pandemic and incorporate them in the day to day life in order to assist our staff and patients in the prevention and control of infections. Some of the strategies we seek to incorporate are:

• Increase the distance between patients sharing a room.
  • During the pandemic social distancing became one of the primary tools for preventing the spread of infection.
  • Some of our rooms accommodate up to 3 patients. By decreasing the number of beds in these rooms to two we will: a) increase the distance between the patients, b) provide a more comfortable visiting area for the patients and their relatives, c) provide a more comfortable and safe areas for the staff to provide care.
  • The reduction of beds will not affect the number of patients being admitted since our average census has been lower that the proposed reduction for over five years.
• Increase the Staff knowledge of infection prevention and control.
  • During the pandemic, the staff knew what to do and did it! Keeping our patients Covid-free or helping them recover as well as preventing the spread of the infection through the facility.

Initiative #2 – Nurse Aide Training Program (NATP)

During the pandemic, it was difficult to find Nurse Aide Training Programs to train our new religious members. This delayed the incorporation of new Certified Nurse Aides (CNAs).

• A facility based Nurse Aide Training Program.
  • We have the staff and the equipment necessary to start a NATP in the facility.
  • It will provide flexibility in the schedule, do not need to leave the facility to be trained, and the training will be tailored to the policies and procedures of our facility.

STATUS OF INITIATIVES

• We are in the process of submitting a Limited Certificate of Needs to request the decertification of 12 beds. This will:
  • Permit us to remove one bed of each of the current three bed rooms. This will provide us with additional space of each of the patients in that room.
  • Allow us to dedicate one room for the Nurse Aide Training Program.
• As part of the Limited Certificate of Needs, we have engaged “Research & Marketing Strategies, Inc. (RMS)” as an independent entity to perform a Health Equity Impact Assessment (HEIA) to determine the impact of this project to the community we serve. The HEIA is currently progress and will be available for review here when it is completed.
• We have implemented Relias Learning platform to assist us in the training of our staff. This has allowed us to expand the training of our staff beyond our in-house resources. We are now able to offer our staff internal and external training in the same platform, with flexibility of schedule.
• We are in the process of completing the application to start a Nurse Aide Training Program in our facility.