by Timothy Gieseke, MD, CMD

Last summer, CALTCM formed the Clinical Practice committee under the able leadership of Dr. David Berman. We are clinicians very much aware of the difficulties our facility teams have upgrading care processes as new knowledge impacts the care we should be providing. With so many of our patients having diabetes as a key factor in their health, we have decided to mine the literature and think strategically with you, about how we might help our teams bring about incremental, sustainable, & measurable improvement in our diabetes care (QAPI). We realize our committee needs a greater representation from the work force we serve. If you are willing to review literature and bring your ideas to our monthly conference calls, we would welcome your participation.  We particularly need volunteers who are:  DON/ADON, Administrator, MDS Care Coordinator, NP/PA, Line RN /APRN, and consulting pharmacist.

by Timothy Gieseke MD, CMD 

On February 5th, KTVU TV in Northern California aired an investigative report on Channel 2 for which I’ve attached the written version.  This report was triggered by a daughter’s complaint about the misuse of an antipsychotic in her mother with sudden and persistent adverse effect when the medicine was likely unnecessary. This ultimately led to the daughter moving her mother to a different facility where the medicine was stopped and the patient with dementia returned to a stable baseline status without problem behaviors.

by Heather D’Adamo, MD

Post-Acute and Long Term Care is hard! Don’t do it alone. Join us May 17-19, 2018 for our Annual conference and find new ways to strengthen your community through teamwork and collaboration and to work smarter through clinical and administrative updates.

New this year, instead of our popular but brief medico-legal case, we have added an entire Pre-Conference on Thursday night focusing on medical-legal issues, which will include cases presented by attorneys who handle cases in Nursing Home care. They have seen it all, so you don’t have to.

Did you know that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has changed the reimbursement structure for nursing homes starting October 2018? A new factor that will contribute to your nursing home reimbursement includes hospital readmissions. If you want to improve staff knowledge on new readmission quality measures, identify strategies to strengthen your readmission prevention program and be a preferred provider – join the HSAG Reducing Readmissions Preparation Program today!