AMDA Foundation - First Annual AMDA Foundation/Evercare® Awards Announced

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First Annual AMDA Foundation/Evercare® Awards Announced

Vol XXXIV, Apr '08

The Foundation announced recipients of its newest award, the AMDA Foundation/Evercare® Awards for “improving the quality of life for persons living in nursing homes,” during AMDA’s 2008 Annual Symposium in Salt Lake City, UT. The three awards of $10,000 each reward nursing facilities for programs they have implemented to improve the quality of life for their residents. Starting this year, one of the three awards will be for improved advanced care planning and/or palliative care programs.

The 2008 AMDA Foundation/Evercare® Award recipients are:

Maria Joseph Center, Dayton, OH, for “Improving Outcomes: Identifying Issues Attributing to Unplanned Significant Weight Loss”
Daughters of Israel, West Orange, NJ, for “Falls Reduction Program”
Elderwood at Maplewood, Cheektowaga, NY, for “Flacker Form”

“We were extremely surprised—but excited—that our small project received this national attention,” said Julie Hayes, Elderwood at Maplewood Assistant Director of Nursing. Her facility wanted to improve end-of-life care, so she implemented the Flacker Form, a tool that predicts mortality and morbidity for patients with chronic illnesses. As a result of the tool, Hayes and her team can “identify patients earlier in their disease process and start end-of-life and care planning conversations earlier, as well as get advance directives in place.” Not only did the number of patients with advance directives go up considerably, but the documents were clearer and more detailed.

“I started this project because I wanted to improve end-of-life care for our patients and their families; and I wanted to give a voice to our most frail, vulnerable elders,” said Hayes. She added, “To win an award for this is icing on the cake.”

To view the presentations of the award winners CLICK HERE