Person-Centered Care or Culture Change

CCLC is committed to supporting its member organizations as they work to incorporate principles of person-centered care into all aspects of their operations. Person-centered care refers to the practice of basing key long term care decisions– in areas ranging from how meals are served and how bathing is offered to how work is structured in an organization – on individual resident needs, preferences, and expectations.  Person-centered care, which is integral to the concept of culture change in long term care, is increasingly viewed as an essential aspect of delivering quality care to long term care patients and residents, and, as such, is included among the priority areas that CMS expects state Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs) to focus on in working with organizations under the terms of CMS's Eighth Scope of Work.

CCLC has been engaged with its members and various partners in assisting its members in providing person-centered care. For example, CCLC Co-chairs the Quality Care Committee with 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East. Since 2002, the Quality Care Committee has been supporting joining labor-management efforts to introduce and sustain person-centered care in a group of nursing facilities in the New York Metropolitan area.

In addition, CCLC provided a major quality improvement training initiative that supported person-centered care concepts for 85 nursing facilities in its Quality Improvement Consortium. The three-tiered training, provided to more than 7,000 participants in each tier of training, focused on quality measures and pain, communication and quality, and managing difficult resident behavior, which created an interactive, interdisciplinary experience that advanced person-centered care concepts.

The following is a list of resources on person-centered care:

• Pioneer Network

• The Commonwealth Fund's Page on Resident-Centered Care

• 1199 SEIU Labor Management Fund

• Alzheimer's Association - New York City Chapter

• IPRO's Culture Change Initiative

• Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute

• The American Health Quality Association

• Quality Partners of Rhode Island - Organizational Culture Change

• Better Jobs Better Care

• Action Pact, Culture Change Now

• National Long Term Care Ombudsman Resource Center
  

Note: The above list of Web sites with information about person-centered care in nursing facilities was created on September 7, 2006. CCLC does not attest to the accuracy and completeness of the materials on these sites.