Saturday, May 30, 2009

PI Offers Solution for Nursing Home Rating System

The Solution To Achieving a CMS 5 Star Rating

The new system, instituted by The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, has become the focus for nursing homes around the country. As the public’s familiarity with this system increases, they will increasingly rely on these ratings when choosing a facility. Since the final rating is based on a state-wide ranking, being the best is the only way to score well.

Every administrator knows that you can’t inspect quality into a facility. Consistent quality is the result of well defined policies, procedures and systems that are faithfully executed by the entire staff. While developing these is difficult enough, getting your staff to faithfully execute them is the ultimate challenge.

Our solution addresses this key issue.

The CMS rating system has three key sections that come together to form the overall rating: Health Inspections, Quality Measures, and Staffing. While it might appear to an outsider that staffing is the only area where the people issues come in, they would be wrong. Performance in each of the three areas is directly affected by the behavior of your staff. Since the Quality Measures section is backward looking, it is not even sufficient to have good performance on the day of the inspection. They must be maintained consistently.

The problem: How do you get people to consistently behave as needed?
The answer: You hire people who already have the behavioral characteristics
you need and train managers to lead them effectively.

For too long, we have hired based primarily on experience and certification. If you needed a CNA, you hired a CNA. Unfortunately, we know from 50 years of research that skill and knowledge are not sufficient qualifications for most positions. Most facilities really care about more than just what the person knows: they care how they will behave. While the certification and resume are certainly important, they tell you little about what that person will actually do in the work environment.

That is where we come in.

We help nursing homes implement a tool that has been proven to predict the behavior of individuals in the workplace. This tool allows administrators to identify the desired characteristics needed for a given position and then shows them how to attract and identify people who fit their need.

A nurse is not a nurse

Administrators have told me for years that the type of nurse who is best suited for their dementia wing is very different from the type of nurse who works best in the rehab wing. But how do you know which is which? We give administrators a tool that can easily and quickly show you.

But we can’t be selective.

I know there is a shortage of qualified staff in many areas. That is why another aspect of this program is so critical. Our studies have definitively proven that turnover drops by as much as 50% or more when people are properly matched to their jobs and managers understand how to motivate them. Since longer tenure is one of the key ingredients in increasing consistent quality care, reducing turnover not only eliminates the recruiting problem, it improves quality in measurable ways.

“Turnover in the senior housing industry is a very big deal. In fact, some people would say that the industry statistics are anywhere from 85% turnover to 112% is very common in senior housing. (With PI®) our turnover statistic is 42%, and I think we are in the top 3 companies within the industry nationally, for the lowest turnover.”

Jill Haselman
Vice President of Organizational Development
Benchmark Assisted Living

What is the solution?

The Predictive Index® (known as PI®) is a behavioral assessment tool that has proven itself effective at improving quality with bottom line results in nursing homes, hospitals, assisted living facilities and other care-related institutions. Our program combines the effective use of PI with management training and our support to give you all the tools you need to make a dramatic difference in the operation of your facilities and the treatment of your patients, residents and clients. On top of that, we are EEOC compliant for use in hiring.
Our clients say it best

“I have used behavioral assessments in various applications for almost thirty years and I have not found a more reliable, easier to use, workplace-friendly instrument with wider applications than the PI®.”
Jeff Jernigan
Vice President of Human Resources
St. Mary’s Medical Center

Try PI for yourself

I don’t believe you should make a decision on a program like this without knowing much more about it. Many of our clients have found it helpful to have a few of their senior management team experience the Predictive Index. I will be happy to arrange it and to meet with you to show you their results. At that point, you will have a clear understanding of what we do and how we do it. You will also know if it is a solution to your problems.

Let’s find a time to talk further and move you closer to your goals.
I can be reached at 904-269-2299 x102 or steve@predictiveresults.com.

Steve Waterhouse
President
Predictive Results