MDS Alert

Learn The Most Promising Solutions To Improving Dementia Care

Improving long-term care for residents with dementia is a big issue — and a new research report may hold the keys to achieving this lofty goal.

The RAND Corporation recently released a report, entitled “Improving Dementia Long-Term Care: A Policy Blueprint,” which examines ways to improve long-term services and supports (LTSS) for individuals with dementia. 

The researchers undertook several tasks to gain prioritized policy options and research directions to help industry stakeholders improve the dementia LTSS delivery system, workforce and financing:

• Identify weaknesses in the LTSS system that may be particularly severe for persons with dementia;
• Review national and state strategies addressing dementia or LTSS policy;
• Identify policy options from the perspective of a diverse group of stakeholders; 
• Evaluate the policy options; and
• Prioritize policy options by impact and feasibility.

RAND researchers categorized five main objectives from the 38 policy options that stakeholders identified for the dementia LTSS system:

1. Increase public awareness of dementia to reduce stigma and promote earlier detection;
2. Improve access to and use of LTSS;
3. Promote high-quality, person- and caregiver-centered care;
4. Provide better support for family caregivers of people with dementia; and
5. Reduce the burden of dementia LTSS costs on individuals and families.

Resource: To view the full report, go to www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR597.html. 

Avoid These 4 Infection Control Breaches

If you don’t want to get on a surveyor’s bad side, make sure your practices are not causing infection control breaches. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is cracking down on these types of poor practices.

On May 30, CMS issued guidance to state survey agencies on what kinds of infection control breaches warrant referral to public health authorities. The guidance targets infection control breaches that pose a risk of blood-borne pathogen transmission.

CMS is asking surveyors to notify public health authorities in certain situations so that they can conduct a risk assessment and, if necessary, notify residents, reported Evvie Munley, senior health policy analyst for Washington, D.C. based Leading Age, in a June 4 analysis. Specifically, when a surveyor identifies one or more of the following infection control breaches, the surveyor must report the deficient practice to your state public health authority:

1. Using the same needle for more than one individual.
2. Using the same syringe, pen or injection device (pre-filled/manufactured/insulin or any other type) for more than one individual.
3. Re-using a needle or syringe which has already been used to administer medication to an individual, subsequently entering a medication container (e.g., vial, bag), and then using contents from that medication container for another individual.
4. Using the same lancing/finger-stick device for more than one individual, even if the lancet is changed.

Link: To read the guidance (S&C: 14-36-All), visit www.cms.gov/Medicare/Provider-Enrollment-and-Certification/SurveyCertificationGenInfo/Downloads/Survey-and-Cert-Letter-14-36.pdf.