Staying Cool to Beat the Heat!

Kirkhaven CNAs and Amanda enjoy a tribute to nursing assistants recognition luncheon held at the Holiday Inn and sponsored by Lifespan.

Below, Kirkhaven honorees receive their certificate and token of appreciation.

We continue to make progress with respect to the Kirkhaven Replacement Project. On Monday,the Seniorsfirst Strategic Planning Committee met and viewed a short video on Culture Change. The video does an excellent job orienting viewers to what the Culture Change movement is all about. The video will be shared with the full board at a future board meeting.

I'm really excited about having completed a phase 1 HEAL-NY application grant to seek funding assistance from the Department of Health for 50% of our Project planning & consultant fees. Our strategy is to divide our Project into 3 phases. Phase 1 includes the planning & design, Phase 2 includes the construction documents & construction phase, Phase 3 includes the sale or transition of the existing Kirkhaven building. We are hopeful that our grant request for $60,000 in planning & consultant costs will be approved, followed by approval of a Phase 2 grant request for the more substantial funding request to assist with the construction project equity requirement. We'll keep our fingers crossed as we await approval of the first grant request approval.

The Valley Manor Repositioning Project continues along with Greystone Communities continuing to compile and study the data. We expect their recommendations later this month or next and anxiously await for this report and presentation to management and the board.

And speaking of Valley Manor, Conversity training was in full swing last week as all staff are attending sessions held by Sequeta. The staff feedback has been as positive and appreciative as we experienced at Kirkhaven.

There was some serious training going on last week at Kirkhaven as well. All members of our clinical team spent 2 intense days of classroom training on the MDS (which concluded with a formal exam). The MDS is the driver of our Medicare reimbursement rates and beginning in 2009 will also drive our Medicaid rate. Understanding how to maximize reimbursement via the MDS is critical to our future success.

Here is Amanda with our MDS trainer, Leah, who really knows her stuff and was a great teacher. Kudos to all our team members who attended and enhanced their MDS knowledge.

Scott, Cass, Mary Scorsone and I met last week to strategize more about our payroll policies and ensuring they are adequately meeting the Department of Labor requirements with regard to meal breaks and time clock calculations. We will be presenting some suggestions for further discussion at the next Senior Leadership meeting. At this meeting we will also be discussing the topic of "Internal Marketing" led by Jim Payne.

This week, Amanda and I will be flying out to Wisconsin, along with our architect, to visit 3 Culture Change nursing homes. Our objective is to look, listen and ask questions so we can learn from others mistakes and success. We had another site visit, to a facility in Buffalo, cancelled last week when the Health Department showed up at their facility for the annual survey. We will look to reschedule in the near future.

Hope you are all finding ways to stay cool and beat the heat. I have been out in my kayak a lot lately and find the cool water breeze a great respite from the humidity. I also love to jog when the temperatures get hot (go figure). I took a golf lesson finally and it really helped, so maybe I'll start playing some more golf.

I spoke with Jean Boyle last week and her surgery went very well and she is recuperating and rehabbing at the Fairport Baptist Home (or as I say- conducting some mystery shopping). Have a great week everybody and stay cool!