Person-Directed Care Advisory Team
Organization: Frederick Living, Frederick, PA
Contact Person: Emily Messner (emessner@frederickliving.org) and Ryan Klag (rklag@frederickliving.org)
Description:
In 2015, we formed a person-directed care advisory team at Frederick Living. This committee was composed of residents from our Cedarwood Health Center, a residential living resident, family members, CNAs, homemakers, nurses, the Resident Life Team Leader, and a member from senior leadership. The team was about 10 persons total. This idea to form this committee came from a brainstorming meeting at an off-site retreat for the Cedarwood leadership team in the fall 2014 with the idea to be very intentional in 2015 of furthering our person-directed care journey at Frederick.
The person-directed care advisory team used the Artifacts of Culture Change assessment from Pioneer Network to see how we were doing in living out person-directed care through looking at specific areas (care practices, environment, family and community, etc.). Though we had achieved several benchmarks, such as celebrating each person’s birthday individually, restaurant style dining, and consistent assignments, there were many areas the advisory team discovered where we needed to make progress.
The team prioritized those benchmarks from the Artifacts of Culture Change that had not been met and set-up task teams to achieve these priorities. The results have been amazing. A new program was started called Comfort Companions that utilizes volunteers so individuals have persons with them during their final days of life if they wish. Soap machines were lowered to wheelchair level in resident bathrooms, closet poles in residents’ rooms were adjusted for easier assess, and towel warmers were added to the spa rooms. Intergenerational activities were increased, individualized memorials with resident, family, and staff involvement now occurs at the community. Residents also shower or bathe whenever and as often as they would like. The person-directed advisory team is now moving into its third year and continues to remain an active and intentional way for person-directed care to become a reality at Frederick.