High employee turnover is one of the greatest challenges facing long-term care communities today. Without consistent staffing, care communities and their residents suffer the serious consequences of inadequate care, unnecessary expenses, and inefficient operations. Enhancing Staff Retention in Person-Centered Care Environments for Older Adults outlines how long-term care administrators can reverse this pattern of damaging outcomes by developing, implementing, and maintaining an effective orientation program for all levels of staff. Author Janine Lange, a clinical nurse educator, has standardized new employee orientation programs in many long-term care communities. Her experience and practical knowledge make this an indispensable resource. From defining the culture of a community to establishing an organization's needs to skills testing and the evaluation process, this comprehensive guide covers the essential elements needed for a successful training program. Enhancing Staff Retention also stresses the importance of creating a mentorship program between new and existing employees and provides valuable insight into how to sustain such a program. What can otherwise be the daunting task of creating and implementing an orientation program is simplified with many helpful tools, including: -conversation starters and other communication techniques to enhance staff and resident interactions -summary lists of key points for each step of the orientation process -the 12 essential components of a comprehensive orientation program as well as the 5 common barriers -18 sample agendas, forms, and checklists, both in the book and available for download as PDFs This critical resource for nursing home administrators, clinical education directors, directors of nursing, directors of human resources, and all staff involved with training will assist organizations in fostering a skilled, competent, and well-trained team of caregivers who demonstrate a lasting dedication to older adults.

As the first of the nation's 78 million baby boomers begin reaching age 65 in 2011, they will face a health care workforce that is too small and woefully unprepared to meet their specific health needs. Retooling for an Aging America calls for bold initiatives starting immediately to train all health care providers in the basics of geriatric care and to prepare family members and other informal caregivers, who currently receive little or no training in how to tend to their aging loved ones. The book also recommends that Medicare, Medicaid, and other health plans pay higher rates to boost recruitment and retention of geriatric specialists and care aides. Educators and health professional groups can use Retooling for an Aging America to institute or increase formal education and training in geriatrics. Consumer groups can use the book to advocate for improving the care for older adults. Health care professional and occupational groups can use it to improve the quality of health care jobs.

Among the issues confronting America is long-term care for frail, older persons and others with chronic conditions and functional limitations that limit their ability to care for themselves. Improving the Quality of Long-Term Care takes a comprehensive look at the quality of care and quality of life in long-term care, including nursing homes, home health agencies, residential care facilities, family members and a variety of others. This book describes the current state of long-term care, identifying problem areas and offering recommendations for federal and state policymakers. Who uses long-term care? How have the characteristics of this population changed over time? What paths do people follow in long term care? The committee provides the latest information on these and other key questions. This book explores strengths and limitations of available data and research literature especially for settings other than nursing homes, on methods to measure, oversee, and improve the quality of long-term care. The committee makes recommendations on setting and enforcing standards of care, strengthening the caregiving workforce, reimbursement issues, and expanding the knowledge base to guide organizational and individual caregivers in improving the quality of care.

The winner of the prestigious Walt Whitman award for her book "The Hocus Pocus of the Universe" completed her second book of poetry "The Weight of a Soul" while living in Fairhope, Alabama, just before her death. It reflects the values she embraced while working as a registered nurse.

Nursing Leadership & Management, Fourth Edition provides a comprehensive look at the knowledge and skills required to lead and manage at every level of nursing, emphasizing the crucial role nurses play in patient safety and the delivery of quality health care. Presented in three units, readers are introduced to a conceptual framework that highlights nursing leadership and management responsibilities for patient-centered care delivery to the patient, to the community, to the agency, and to the self. This valuable new edition: Includes new and up-to-date information from national and state health care and nursing organizations, as well as new chapters on the historical context of nursing leadership and management and the organization of patient care in high reliability health care organizations Explores each of the six Quality and Safety in Nursing (QSEN) competencies: Patient-Centered Care, Teamwork and Collaboration, Evidence-based Practice (EBP), Quality Improvement (QI), Safety, and Informatics Provides review questions for all chapters to help students prepare for course exams and NCLEX state board exams Features contributions from experts in the field, with perspectives from bedside nurses, faculty, directors of nursing, nursing historians, physicians, lawyers, psychologists and more Nursing Leadership & Management, Fourth Edition provides a strong foundation for evidence-based, high-quality health care for undergraduate nursing students, working nurses, managers, educators, and clinical specialists.

The concept of 'person-centredness' has become established in approaches to the delivery of healthcare, particularly with nursing, and is embedded in many international healthcare policy frameworks and strategic plans. This book explores person-centred nursing using a framework that has been derived from research and practice. Person-centred Nursing is a theoretically rigorous and practically applied text that aims to increase nurses' understanding of the principles and practices of person-centred nursing in a multiprofessional context. It advances new understandings of person-centred nursing concepts and theories through the presentation of an inductively derived and tested framework for person-centred nursing. In addition it explores a variety of strategies for developing person-centred nursing and presents case examples of the concept in action. This is a practical resource for all nurses who want to develop person-centred ways of working.

This globally focused resource integrates sound research evidence, real-life case scenarios, and effective, practical strategies to address a key health care initiative of the 21st century--optimal quality of life for older adults. Distinguished by its broad and global outlook, the book includes contributions from an international cadre of widely published scholars and is designed for easy integration into traditional nursing education curricula. The book explores the experiences of older adults at home, and in acute and primary care, assisted living, nursing home and hospice environments and examines their needs for dealing with multiple, differentiated health, spiritual, and emotional considerations.