Remember: Resident is heart of person-centered care

If your facility truly wants to deliver person-centered care, then you must involve residents and their families in the care-planning process, Susan LaGrange, RN, BSN, NHA, director of education for Pathway Health, told those attending a session at the American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living annual meeting in Phoenix. Then, resident preferences and other information must be put in writing so that everyone involved in a resident's care can access it.

 

Collaborate with residents and their families not just about medical and safety concerns but all concerns, LaGrange said. Doing so takes time, planning, digging to uncover information and creativity to meet preferences. The collaboration starts with the admission assessment and should continue with periodic audits and informal and formal interviews to gauge resident satisfaction, she added.

 

"The care plan is not a desk job," LaGrange said. "You have to get out there and see what's going on."

 

Care plans, she said, should be:

 

All departments should be educated on a resident's choices and the care-planning decisions associated with them, LaGrange said. To help staff understand that others may have preferences that don't match their own, have them participate in exercises in which they discuss the toppings they would choose if making a pizza, the places they would go if planning a vacation, the stores they would visit on a shopping trip or the ways in which they would decorate a room.