Meeting the Leadership Challenge in Long-Term Care: What You Do Matters

by David Farrell, Cathie Brady, Barbara Frank, V. Tellis-Nayak (Foreword by), Mary Tellis-Nayak (Foreword by)

Overview

"This book represents the intersection of nursing and culture change. Read it. Do it with, not for, your staff."—Sarah Burger, RNC, MPH, FAAN, Gerontological Nurse Consultant"This book should be required reading for all who work in care settings, and the text used for leadership and health care administration courses in colleges.” —Joanne Rader, RN, MN, PMHNP, Nurse Specialist Consultant"David Farrell's journal is gripping, compelling, sensitive and realistic. His and his co-author's analysis of nursing home challenges and the ways to address them are compassionate and full of plain old common-sense. The authors have issued a serious call-to-action to every nursing home administrator and director of nursing. Should be required reading!"—Carol Benner, Sc.M., National Director, Advancing Excellence in America's Nursing Homes CampaignMake your long-term care organization more successful, efficient, and stable with the practical and proven approaches in this guide to organizational transformation. A National Mature Media Awards Winner, Meeting the Leadership Challenge in Long-Term Care teaches nursing home administrators, directors of nursing, and others in leadership roles how to improve operations in key areas including staff turnover, occupancy rates, and quality of care. Based on extensive on-the-ground experience guiding hundreds of nursing homes towards positive change, the authors (widely recognized as experts in the long-term care field) offer advice and wisdom that can transform your organization, whether it is currently struggling or already thriving. Open the door to new possibilities and set your organization on a better course now!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781938870170
Publisher:	Health Professions Press
Publication date:	02/14/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	17 - 18 Years

About the Author

David Farrell, M.S.W., L.N.H.A., is a licensed nursing home administrator who has spent his entire career in the long-term care profession. David earned a Master’s in Social Work with a concentration in Gerontology and Administration from Boston College. In the 25 years he has served as a nursing home administrator, David has advocated for culture change using quality improvement practices. While working for state Quality Improvement Organizations, he played a lead role in the National Nursing Home Quality Initiative. Currently, David is the Director of Organizational Development and Regional Director of Operations for a private nursing home management firm in California. Cathie Brady, M.S., has more than 30 years of experience providing services and advocating for older adults in a variety of settings, including serving as Executive Director of the Department of Aging Services for the city of Bristol, Connecticut, and for 10 years as the Regional LTC Ombudsman for Eastern Connecticut. Cathie has an M.S. in Organizational Management from Eastern Connecticut State University. Cathie is a frequent speaker at state and national conferences and specializes in leadership development at all levels of an organization to assist nursing homes interested in being better places to live and work. Barbara Frank, M.P.A., began her career in long-term care by serving 16 years at the National Citizens’ Coalition for Nursing Home Reform in Washington, D.C., where she facilitated the Campaign for Quality. She has served as state ombudsman for Connecticut, and facilitated the first Pioneer Network gathering in 1997. Co-founder of B&F Consulting, she works directly with individual nursing homes to improve their performance measures through workforce retention and culture change. Barbara co-authored Nursing Homes: Getting Good Care There (1996) and has written extensively on efforts to improve care and outcomes in nursing homes. Barbara has an M.P.A. from the Kennedy School of Government.

Editorial Reviews

Farrell is director of organizational development for a private nursing home management firm in California. Here, he offers a practical field guide for administrators, directors of nursing, corporate regional staff, and other long-term care leaders, emphasizing that managers must connect to the human needs of staff. The book begins with Farrell's account of a year of transformation in one nursing home, based on his real-life journals. The second part of the book gives detailed, practical techniques for preventing absenteeism and high staff turnover and for rewarding staff for stability and dependability. The third section gives suggestions for integrating quality improvement, individualized care, and workplace stability practices, using leadership examples from real nursing homes. A final chapter explains the negative impact of common practices such as 'drive-by consulting.' An appendix offers a method for tracking absenteeism. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Reviews - Book News

AALTCN commends the authors for this important contribution to the advancement of LTC leadership.

Reviews - American Association of Long Term Care Nurses

David Farrell was fired by the first nursing home administrator he ever worked for. His intolerable indiscretion? Visiting facility residents because he enjoyed their company, while not “on the clock” as a nurse’s aide.Farrell has now been a licensed nursing home administrator for twenty-five years, and he is a recognized leader in improving quality and creating change through positive example. Together with Cathie Brady and Barbara Frank—also veterans in improving nursing home quality and culture—Farrell has produced an unusually practical and encouraging guide for nursing home administrators and directors of nursing. Farrell calls them “the unseen, hands-on leaders who mentor 1.3 million workers in the art of caring for older adults.” He provides a range of insights for anyone interested in the ins and outs of long-term care.The stage is set by a personal journal—it makes up about one-quarter of the book—documenting a year during which Farrell oversees the transformation of an unnamed dysfunctional and disheveled facility. He candidly records the strategies he employed (each is fully described in later sections) and the enormity of the changes produced. Among them were signs of progress that every survey team and chief financial officer want to see, including major declines in staff turnover, drops in patients’ pressure ulcers acquired in the facility, and substantial increases in the occupancy rate and profit margin.But the important message in the journal isn’t so much that objective measures of success were achieved, but how. In the authors’ view, they flowed logically from transformations in working relationships, guiding values, and key processes. Beginning at the top, changes created what the authors call a “positive spillover” effect.Grounded in a combination of clearheaded observation and research, some changes were consistent with accepted practices, like implementing employee recognition programs and making sure not to assign work shifts during people’s scheduled absences. Others overturned deeply held but ultimately counterproductive “wisdom,” such as paying aides more when they were covering for absentee colleagues (actually a perverse incentive to miss one’s own shifts) and ignoring personal circumstances outside the workplace (they can affect job performance, and the employee assistance program might help).Meeting the Leadership Challenge in Long-Term Care provides straightforward, no-nonsense guidance for nursing home leaders and will help corporate officers to whom they report—and many others—appreciate their true value.

Reviews - Health Affairs

To anyone familiar with culture change, the names David Farrell, Cathie Brady and Barbara Frank are well known. These leaders have helped to cast a vision for enlightened approaches to transforming nursing homes into dynamic centers for residents and employees alike. They now have pooled their wisdom in a new book that helps NHAs, DONs, and other leaders to improve their performance. Meeting the Leadership Challenge in Long-Term Care: What You Do Matters combines practical experience with current leadership theory to offer a guide to addressing major challenges that nursing homes face. Practical approaches are offered on staff recruitment and retention, team development, leadership development, quality improvement, and satisfaction improvement. AALTCN commends the authors (who also have been good supporters of the association!) for this important contribution to the advancement of LTC leadership. To learn more or to order the book visit: www.healthpropress.com

Reviews - American Association for Long Term Care Nursing