AHCA Announces Nursing Home Quality Winners (VIDEO)
[embed_youtube”420″ height=”315″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/sm2stMLyfn4″]
Flavanols Found in Chocolate May Help with Mild Memory Problems (VIDEO)
[embed_youtube”420″ height=”315″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/F7DrHoGRwf4″]
AHCA Announces Nursing Home Quality Winners
The American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL) announced the recipients of the 2012 National Quality Award program. A total of 458 skilled nursing or assisted living facilities from across the country earned a Bronze, Silver or Gold from the three-tiered award program which commends those facilities that focus on improving the quality of care for the individuals they serve.
Initiated in 1996 and centered on the criteria of the renowned Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, the AHCA/NCAL National Quality Award program has encouraged long term and post-acute care facilities to achieve performance excellence through continuous learning and development. The programÛªs three levels ÛÒ Bronze, Silver and Gold ÛÒ each maintain meticulous criteria, and facilities seeking to attain all three must do so in succession.
In 2012, 404 facilities earned Bronze and 52 earned Silver. Only two facilities were recipients of the programÛªs highest honor ÛÒ the Gold award. Golden LivingCenter ÛÒ Continental Manor in Abbotsford, WI and Grand Islander Center, Genesis HealthCare in Middletown, RI join the Gold platform with only 11 other facilities that have earned the award since the program began.
The awards were presented during AHCA/NCALÛªs 63rd Annual Convention & Expo, October 7-10 in Tampa, Florida.
For a complete list of the 2012 Quality Award recipients, please visit the AHCA website.
While there is a lot of debate over what constitutes quality in long-term care, nonetheless, these winners should be applauded for their efforts to make life better for residents. You may want to check them out when searching for care for a loved one.
Flavanols Found in Chocolate May Help with Mild Memory Problems
As reported in Health Day News, a cocoa drink rich in flavanols — the same antioxidants found in chocolate — may help people with mild memory problems improve their brain function.
Flavanols are found in tea, grapes, red wine, apples and especially in cocoa plants and are associated with a decreased risk of dementia, Italian researchers said.
Flavanols’ ability to help maintain brain function may arise from their ability to protect brain cells, improve brain metabolism and blood flow, which helps preserve memory, the researchers said.
A study was funded by the candy maker, Mars Inc. Researchers assigned 90 elderly patients with mild memory impairment to consume a drink containing either 990 milligrams (mg), 520 mg or 45 mg of cocoa flavanols each day for eight weeks.The researchers assessed participants’ brain function with a variety of tests. People consuming the high and intermediate amounts of flavanol showed significant improvement on some of the tests, the study found.åÊ
Researchers cautioned that the study was done with lower-calorie, nutritionally balanced drinks not chocolate itself. And they cautioned that a balanced diet was important. Eating too much chocolate can cause you to gain excessive weight and negate the benefits.
While the study found an association between cocoa flavanols and mental function scores, it did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.
I have one square of dark chocolate each night. I am no worse for wear.
New Tool Searches Nursing Home Deficiencies
A consumer-targeted Internet tool allows users to search the federal nursing home inspection reports and deficiencies by keyword, city and facility name.
The Nursing Home Inspect database covers nearly 118,000 deficiencies at 14,565 homes. It was designed by ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism.
Nursing Home Inspect uses data from surveyor reports published on Medicare’s Nursing Home Compare website. But with Nursing Home Inspect, users can now search the database by keywords such as ÛÏelopementÛ or ÛÏpressure soreÛ or ÛÏmistreat.Û Unlike the CMS site, Nursing Home Inspect allows searches by keyword and city, as well as a homeÛªs name. Also unlike CMS, the app allows you to search across all the reports at once.
The ProPublica project hones in on the narrative part of a surveyor’s most recent periodic review, where the conditions and deficiencies are described. A tipsheet from the group cautions users that inspection reports focus only on a given facility’s problems, not the accomplishments or improvements that home has made, and describes the results as giving a ÛÏsnapshot.Û
Although the government is reporting nursing home deficiencies online, it does not report how homes plan to fix the problems. These ÛÏPlans of CorrectionÛ can be viewed at the nursing home or by submitting a FOIA request to the government.
