AMDA Foundation - State Spotlight: Year 3 Summary

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Vol X, Oct `05

State Spotlight: Year 3 Summary

Vol X, Oct `05

Florida - At the LTC-QI Partnership, we've come up with creative solutions to the challenges posed by real-world nursing home research. One of our solutions was shifting from a single rollout date in each state to "rolling recruitment," which involved continuous recruitment and staggered start dates. Rolling recruitment has been particularly successful in Florida.

When recruitment began last year, Florida nursing homes were in the midst of a particularly bad hurricane season. As the e-Newsletter reported previously, several hurricanes directly affected Florida nursing homes. While some were interested in participating in our project, none were enrolled or trained—and more immediate concerns took over when hurricanes overwhelmed staff and forced evacuations.

Hope Caldwell, Florida's state nurse coordinator, recognized that interested homes needed project staff to work around the hurricane season and provide some flexibility about the project start dates.

The implementation of rolling recruitment made participation feasible; it meant that homes could still participate—but they could delay their participation until their routines stabilized.

As a result of the new policy, nine Florida homes are now enrolled.