Long-Term Care Facilities- Long-Term Care Assisted Living Facility

Long-Term Care Facilities- Long-Term Care Assisted Living Facility

Brookdale Senior Living, Inc

Brookdale Senior Living Inc. is a senior long-term care organization that has LTC facilities across the country. It is among the largest senior living and retirement community service providers in the United States. The facilities provide services that meet various requirements of senior citizens. It has full-time residents and additional long-term services for other aged patients under different types of elderly care. The long-term care organization, in its various facilities across the country, provides affordable assisted living care services that meet the needs of a majority of families across the United States. Brookdale Senior Living’s mission is to enrich the lives of those served by the organization with compassion, respect, excellence, and integrity. The long-care facility has a culture of connecting with the people in a personal way and providing a comfortable and caring environment for the residents to improve their wellness, fulfill their lifelong desires, and maintain an active social life. Our assignment writing help is at affordable prices to students of all academic levels and academic disciplines.

For the orientation of the newly appointed manager, I will review departments and teams, the programs offered and the populations they target, the major staffing and human resource issues, the current and significant trends in long-term care, especially in assisted living, that may have an impact on the facility’s programs and operations, and how resources are cooperated and integrated into Brookdale Senior Living facilities.

Departments and Teams

Brookdale Senior Living Inc. applies the same core administrative structure across all of its senior living facilities. All facilities have departments dedicated to business and admissions operations, nursing care operations, kitchen and dietary operations, resident and community social services, and recreation. In the senior assisted living category, the facilities have a director of services in charge of the assisted living operations, a medical director who is in charge of the assisted living medical strategies, a director for nursing activities, an HR manager for all staff working on both the day and night shifts.

The services offered under the long-term assisted living care program require a multidisciplinary team to be successful. Brookdale Senior Living assisted living facilities have direct care nursing home employees, administration, and assisted living facility support. The direct nursing home employees are responsible for all the nursing and dietary needs, health assessments, and welfare and health outcomes of the residents under the assisted living program. Therefore, they are responsible for all daily living activities of the assisted living residents. They include Registered Nurses (RNs), Licensed Vocational Nurses (LVNs), Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs), Physical Therapists (PTs), and Nursing Home Dieticians.

On the other hand, administration and support employees, as they are not directly involved with the daily living activities of the residents under the assisted living programs, are responsible for all activities that support the direct nursing home employees. Their duties include all administrative duties, the management of the facility activities, facility maintenance services, daily planning, and organization of social activities for the residents. The administration and support employees include all administrators, directors, service coordinators, housekeeping staff, custodial staff, dining staff, and all volunteers directly involved in the organization’s long-term care programs.

Programs Offered and Targeted Population

Brookdale Senior Living has both customized and versatile programs targeted to meet the specific needs of seniors. The programs and the target populations they serve include:

Independent living program– This program is designed to provide residents who would like an option for comfortable independent living care. Although the program is termed independent living, it provides services such as cleaning, lawn care, cooking, and other social services that improve the comfort of the residents. The program serves seniors who need their household activities managed to explore other activities.

Assisted living program– This program is designed to meet the needs of retired senior citizens and provides a safe and structured senior community and environment for the residents to live their late age years comfortably. It targets retirees who want full-time care and still maintain an active social life.

Memory care: it is a program that is designed to meet the needs of seniors with diseases like Alzheimer’s disease or dementia and needs optimized care for a better quality of life. All memory care facilities are designed to cater to each individual resident’s needs. It targets senior citizens with memory loss with an apartment and surrounding facility to provide optimal care.

Skilled nursing: Brookdale Senior Living has facilities specialized in providing long-term nursing care for patients recovering from injuries or sickness. It serves seniors who are just recovering from a sickness and need time to recover under skilled nursing care.

Continuing care retirement communities: This is a long-term care program designed to provide elderly citizens with a retirement community that meets their aging needs. It targets seniors who want to join an independent living program and shift through other programs that meet their needs as they age.

Home health care: This is a program designed for people who want to stay in their homes but need medical care. Healthcare professionals visit their patients at their homes on a regular basis to provide medical, hygiene, and other forms of care.

Hospice care: This is a program designed for patients with life-threatening illnesses. It provides comfortable end-of-life care within a hospice care facility.

Besides the main programs and services, Brookdale Senior Living has extra programs designed to reinforce the Optimum Life mentality. The plans include the B-Fit, a class of physical exercises, the Ageless Spirit,  My Life Story, Brain Fit, Resident Technology, and Health Talks.

Major Staffing and Human Resource Issues in Brookdale Senior Living

The current demand for long-term care is on the rise due to an aging population and a high prevalence of long-term conditions such as dementia and other chronic illnesses. Despite this demand, there is a low number of nurses available in the market to meet the current patient needs. The scramble for the shrinking workforce and skilled nurses in long-term care is high. Brookdale Senior Living facilities are managed with the available skilled human resources. However, with the rising patient acuity, the staffing and human resources will be overloaded and overrun by the demand. Nursing shortages may lead to nurse burnout, intentions to leave, and a lack of options for patients, which can impact on quality of care (Ambani et al., 2020); there is a need to focus on improving human resources through training and recruiting new ones to meet the current and future demand.

Significant trends in long-term care in Assisted Living with an Impact on Programs and Operations

The current significant trends in long-term care that pose a risk to the efficiency and effectiveness of the Brookdale Senior Living programs and Operations  include:

Staffing shortages

A fast-aging population with chronic illnesses

Growing competition from newly established nursing homes and assisted living facilities

Growing demand for specialized and individualized assisted living care

Short-term migrant care workers

New health management technologies, such as telehealth

Resources Cooperation and Integration in Brookdale Senior Living

The level of cooperation enables organizations to achieve their objectives as effectively as possible (Pulinka, 2020). Brookdale Senior Living operations are cooperated indirectly and at a tertiary level. The management has control over all decisions and makes use of power tools to promote the integration of services. The long-term care facilities make use of multidisciplinary teams to enable the organization to meet its mission goals. Although the various teams are tasked with different duties, all actions and activities of each team are aimed toward providing comfort, safety, and peace to all of the residents. All financing for the operations comes from user payments. The services provided are based on the programs that a resident has subscribed to and paid for. This has led to complaints from some residents due to the feeling of selective and unfair access to services. There are also notable differences in the quality of services provided in different facilities under Brookdale Senior Living.

Long-Term Adult Day Care Facility: Trinity Care Adult Day Care Center

Trinity Care Adult Day Care Center is an adult day care center that offers daycare services to frail elderly and functionally and/or cognitively impaired adults who may need assistance during the day. The facility only offers adult day care services that provide the elderly with care to connect socially and engage in activities that promote wellness and health. The adult daycare services provided aim to simplify and offer comfort for the aged. Although the facility is an adult day care center, its services are not only beneficial to the daily residents; they also aim to provide peace of mind to the entire family and allow them to go on with their daily lives. The adult day care services are tailored in a community-based group setting. Therefore, it provides professional and individualized care services to older adults and allows their caregivers to engage in other obligations such as work or school.

Departments and Teams

The Trinity Adult Day Care Center understands that the participants in its adult day care programs and their family caregivers have individual and unique needs. Therefore, the facility has multiple departments with sufficient and professional human resources to help meet such needs individually. The departments can be categorized as administrative and nursing services departments. The administrative departments oversee all managerial and maintenance components of the facility on a daily basis. They include human resource professionals, accountants, finance officers, clerks, and kitchen staff. They offer the support the medical teams need to provide the services provided within the adult day care program.

The medical team is composed of multidisciplinary, qualified health care professionals. The multidisciplinary medical professionals include:

Registered and licensed Nurses manage the daily health needs of the participants in the program and provide educative sessions to promote healthier living.

Activity professionals design individualized activities for each individual participant to ensure that they remain active.

Certified Nursing Professionals who support the activity professionals and offer support to the participants by assisting them with their daily living activities,

Social workers to support the participants and their families,

Dietary consultants who are engaged in diet planning and management.

Since there are no night shifts, all teams are available during the day.

Programs Offered and Targeted Population

The center has a very affordable and inclusive adult daycare program. The program gives the participants a social environment in which they can directly get engaged. This program is supported by other services that the facility can design to meet the needs of an individual participant and be incorporated into the main daycare programs. The program is targeted to serve individuals who are frail, have dementia and other chronic diseases that affect daily living, many families that need assistance in structuring their daily activities, who are unable to involve themselves in activities such as reading or watching television, those that are isolated or at risk of getting lonely during the day, those that are at risk of depression, anxiety and those in need of emotional support, and for families that cannot afford or do not need full-time in-home care for their aged ones.

The adult day care program is combined with other individualized services such as medical care, restorative nursing, art therapies, music and memory therapies, pet therapies, medication management, diabetes and weight management, field trips, exercises, and memory enhancement programs. The center also provides nutritional services to meet the daily dietary needs of the participants. These services are designed to restore and maintain the mental and physical capabilities of the participants in the adult daycare program.

Besides the main adult day care services, the center also provides medical care and support services for seniors who are living or have been diagnosed with age-related chronic diseases such as Parkinson’s disease, dementia,

Major staffing and human resource issues in Trinity Day Care Center

The Trinity Adult Day Care Center has no major reported staffing and human resource issues. However, the staff has complained that a majority of the participants in the programs and services provided in the facility are often reported when they already have a serious and ongoing health issue. Some require assisted living services, which the facility does not provide. The facility is threatened by the ongoing shortage of long-term health care (Marć et Al., 2018). Although the current staffing meets the needs of the facility, there is a threat of skilled nurse poaching from other adult day care centers and assisted living facilities.

Due to the individualized approach to providing care, a number of the staff often get confused with appropriate standards of care that meet each need. This may, in a way, compromise the quality of care provided.

Significant Trends in Long-term Care in Adult Day Care with an Impact on Programs and Operations in Trinity Adult Day Care Center

The adult day care industry has seen some significant trends that have an impact on how the programs and services provided by Trinity Adult Day Care Center are operated. Such trends include:

Rising costs of healthcare

A fast-increasing aging population and longevity

Competition from other long-term care facilities

The high number of chronic diseases associated with aging,

Shortage of technically competent nurses (Marć et Al., 2018).

Emerging specialized stand-alone centers

Resources Cooperation and Integration in Trinity Adult Day Care Center

The registered nurses are in charge of all care services provided within the center. They incorporate the available resources and multidisciplinary team inputs to promote the quality of care provided by the facility. Although the facility administrator is in charge of operations, the teams are allowed to act independently throughout a typical day to meet the individual needs of each participant. Further, the facility considers the type of care the participants receive once they leave the facility. As the center solely offers adult day care, both the facility and home caregivers need to work together to ensure that the appropriate quality levels of care are given both at home and at the facility. The facility considers family dynamics to determine the amount of support expected from the levels of family caregivers to ensure consistency of care within and off the facility.

References

Ambani, Z., Kutney‐Lee, A., & Lake, E. T. (2020). The nursing practice environment and Nurse Job Outcomes: A path analysis of survey data. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 29(13-14), 2602–2614. https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.15283

Marć, M., Bartosiewicz, A., Burzyńska, J., Chmiel, Z., & Januszewicz, P. (2018). A nursing shortage – a prospect of global and local policies. International Nursing Review, 66(1), 9–16. https://doi.org/10.1111/inr.12473

Pulinka, Á. (2020). The complexity of change and its relationship with the levels of cooperation needed during a change process. Vezetéstudomány / Budapest Management Review, 51(5), 15–26. https://doi.org/10.14267/veztud.2020.05.02

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Choose two long-term care facilities—one from nursing facilities, assisted living, or subacute care and another from adult day care, home health care, or hospice care—on which you would want to base your research work. Research the South University Online Library and the Internet to read about your chosen long-term care facilities.

Assume you are responsible for the management and administration of the two facilities. You have to orient the newly appointed manager by providing an overview of managing long-term care. You also need to discuss the programs of the two facilities. From this perspective and based on your research about the facilities, prepare a Microsoft Word document including the following:

What are the various multidisciplinary departments (teams) included in your facilities?
Who comprises the target population being served by the various programs provided by your chosen facilities?
What are the major staffing and human resource issues faced by your chosen facilities?
What are the significant trends in long-term care likely to impact the operation of the various programs provided by your chosen facilities, and what is your plan of action to overcome them?
What are the various forms of cooperation and integration existing in your chosen facilities? Discuss the nature of management, financing, and quality issues related to integration and cooperation in the facilities?
To support your work, use your course and textbook readings and also use the South University Online Library. As in all assignments, cite your sources in your work and provide references for the citations in APA format.