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| Project Title: | Curricula for Homecare Advances in Management and Practice (CHAMP) |
| Project Period: | October 1, 2004 - September 30, 2008 |
| Key Project Staff: |
Penny Hollander Feldman, Ph.D., Principal Investigator |
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Background:
The proposed program addresses a series of interrelated problems that have led to suboptimal geriatric care for many home healthcare patients and takes advantage of a changing environment that has created stronger incentives for home healthcare agencies to put quality of care for this patient population at the top of their strategic goals and priorities.The Problem: 1) Home care nurses are inadequately prepared in geriatric care; 2) Continuing education for home health nurses is variable and outmoded; 3) Home healthcare managers lack the management and teaching skills necessary to help them supervise and support nurses in achieving improved outcomes for geriatric patients; and 4) Inadequate training and staff development opportunities for home healthcare managers and nurses detract from job satisfaction and quality of care. Purpose: The purpose of this initiative is to improve care for older patients served by home health agencies and to embed in those agencies the capacity for continuous practice improvement. The specific aim is to develop and test a sustainable training model for nurse managers in home healthcare agencies. In turn, the nurses they manage will be equipped to employ "best geriatric practices" in the care of their older patients. Successful implementation of the training program, which will be conducted twice over a four-year project period, should reach approximately 300 frontline managers, 3000 nurses under their supervision, and 150,000 to 200,000 older patients in the short run. Established on a permanent basis within the VNAA, the reach of the program should be far greater. Study Design:The foundation for this initiative is an enhanced "train the trainer" model. The emphasis of the model will be on 1) implementation of geriatric best practices, 2) use of quality improvement (QI) and measurement tools and skills to track progress in implementation, and 3) techniques for integrating best practices into frontline care. Specifically the project will:
Conclusions: Publications: Sponsors: The Atlantic Philanthropies with the Visiting Nurses Association of America |
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