It Takes The Whole Team

Posted on May 20, 2013 by Action Pact

Last week long-term care organizations around the country were celebrating National Nursing Home Week with a theme of “Team Care”. At Action Pact, we think every week is a week we should be concentrating on our teamwork. We have always said that it takes involvement from everyone in the nursing home to change its culture and the work of a team of caregivers to create home on a daily basis for and with elders. That is why in the Household Model decisions are made by the household team and not in departmental silos.

We’ve created a podcast for you to hear more about this philosophy and how it works in real nursing homes across the country. We think it is kind of fun, especially since it features participants from our Choreography of Culture Change intensive sharing their stories.

Helping Out and Staying Active

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Action Pact

Geurt Van Sant is a man who likes to work, likes to be helpful. His move to Hearthstone: A Ministry of Wesley Life in Pella, IA was not going to change that. “I’m going to be doing something until the … Continue reading →

Why We Do Learning Circles

Posted on May 10, 2013 by LaVrene Norton

The learning circle is the handy hammer of culture change – anyone can use it, it’s simple, it’s intuitive and it’s the tool you come back to, over and over, with each new piece of home life you build. For the Household Model to function at its potential, the organization must be reconfigured, doing away with traditional silos and hierarchy. The learning circle is the tool that can assist the organization in that work. Continue reading →

4 Ways High Involvement Supports Organizational Transformation

Posted on March 26, 2013 by LaVrene Norton

High involvement is essential for deep transformation. W. Edwards Deming, a statistician, was credited with Japan’s rise in manufacturing after World War II. The improvements were seen clearly in the quality of Japanese cars that began to dominate American highways in the 1970’s. Deming’s processes gradually came to influence the entire auto industry. In his book Out of the Crisis, published in 1982, he detailed 14 points vital to transforming business. His 14^th point: Transformation is everyone’s job. Continue reading →

CMS Supports New Dining Practice Standards

Posted on March 14, 2013 by Action Pact

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently published a memorandum to surveyors regarding long-term care organizations’ implementation of the New Dining Practice Standards. CMS also provided a training video to its surveyors on new recommended nursing home dining practices that focus on resident choice and limiting the use of restricted diets. Continue reading →

Facilitating Organizational Change from Within

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Megan Hannan

At Action Pact our philosophy of change focuses on developing leaders who inspire a vision, listen to others and step out of traditional roles and patterns. We specialize in creating learning organizations. In order to do this we help create—and help our clients learn to create—a climate for learning. An important element of that is utilizing different learning strengths. Some of us are visual learners, others are auditory learners and others are kinesthetic learners. Continue reading →

Reflecting on Person-Centered Care with Call the Midwife

Posted on February 7, 2013 by Action Pact

The 21^st Century’s British Invasion seems to be that of highly engaging BBC television series. Downton Abbey and Sherlock Holmes have a rabid fan following. Call the Midwife, a series based on the memoirs of a nurse working in London’s East End in the 1950s, is all sorts of charming as well. In addition to being entertaining, the Call the Midwife holiday special offers a great lesson in person-centered care of elders, especially those living with dementia. Continue reading →