Leaders: Use Residents Rights Month to Strengthen Your Culture of Care
October is Residents Rights Month, a time to reflect on dignity, choice, and person-centered care. Many nursing home providers use this month to deliver their required in-service training on Residents Rights.
But let’s be honest, it can be challenging to keep this mandatory training engaging and thought-provoking. So, let me offer you a fresh perspective and a challenge.
At a minimum, Federal law specifies that nursing homes must protect and promote the following rights of each resident. These seventeen broad categories ensure that residents have the right to:
1. Be treated with respect.
2. Participate in activities.
3. Be free from discrimination
4. Be free from abuse and neglect
5. Be free from restraints
6. Make complaints without fear
7. Receive proper medical care
8. Have their representatives notified when your health changes
9. Receive information on services and fees in writing before admission
10. Manage their own money or choose someone they trust to do this
11. Get proper privacy, property and living arrangements
12. Spend time with visitors
13. Receive social services
14. Leave the nursing home for visits or when moving out.
15. Have protection against unfair transfer or discharge
16. Form or participate in resident groups like Resident Council
17. Have their family and friends involved in their care.
Would you consider inservicing staff using these Residents Rights to improve your home’s culture of person-centered care? Take these rights and apply the principle of continuous quality improvement which motivates us to take what we do well and apply it across all systems for improvement. Through your Residents Rights inservicing you can inspire your teams to examine your practices asking, “Here’s what we do well, how can we do it even better?”
Here’s an example. Resident Right number 16 ensures that residents have the right to form and participate in Resident Council. Your home has a Resident Council, and you follow this monthly meeting formula:
Review of the minutes + review of next month’s activity calendar + brief discussion of Residents Rights + complaints voiced and shared with the Administrator= follow up and response.
Let’s apply some continuous quality improvement to this formula.
Monthly meeting- is the meeting place private, accessible and have you arranged the room to maximize engagement for those attending? Look at the seating configuration, is it “same old”? Improve it.
Review of the Minutes: Can residents see and hear what is presented? Add large print to your agendas and a microphone to amplify your presenter’s voice.
Present the Activity Calendar. Can you increase opportunities for resident volunteerism by asking residents to lead a few programs, or can you set an improvement goal to increase participation by asking residents to invite others to join a program next month?
Residents Rights review- rather than just reading aloud “the Resident Right of the month”, connect it to a quality improvement project your QAPI team is focusing on. Get feedback during this time from the residents, ask for their input and include this as part of your QAPI team’s qualitative analysis.
Complaints voiced- When familiar complaints arise, can you use them as opportunities to dig deeper? Practice asking the 5 Whys for quality improvement before passing the complaint along.
Follow up and response- Administrators, collaborate with your staff Resident Council liaison to set expectations for fruitful council meetings, teach them the art of the 5 Whys, challenge them to maximize this opportunity for feedback and quality improvement that will amplify your culture of person-centered care.
Your fresh perspective:
By viewing Residents Rights through the lens of continuous quality improvement, you can transform your annual training from routine compliance into an inspiring exercise in person-centered care.
Your challenge:
This month, take a closer look at how you can honor Residents Rights for those living with a dementia and their families. How can you make these rights visible, tangible, and real in daily life?
Follow me at thememorypros.org as we explore practical ways to strengthen both Residents Rights and person-centered practices in dementia care.
