My name is Maureen Brown. I’m the administrator here at Miami Shores Nursing and Rehab.
I’ve been the administrator for 7 years. And, this facility has 99 beds; 55 designated for skilled
services and 44 as long-term care beds. As far as anti-psychotic medications, we decided
to take on this project because I went to a seminar, and when I was at the seminar,
I found out that my facility was the number one facility using the off-label antipsychotics
in Florida. And I decided at that meeting that I was going to be proactive and implement
a program to make a change. As far as how we implemented the program, we had to
start with education, because when I came in and I told my team that we were number one, they
were upset, and then when I told them that we were going to make a change, they said, “How?”
What is hard is that you have to give it a try, don't just block it out and say it will
never work. You have to try, you have to have a plan in place, you have to get everybody
involved. It has to be a team effort. No one department can do it alone. You have to be
together as a team. One person cannot do this work. At first it was a little difficult,
but then with the teamwork and with the team input, we had a good team effort. Teamwork
is the key. At the beginning resistance from my nurses, that they say, "Oh no, the residents
can't do it, how they going to do without it?" We had to kid them and encourage them
and say you have to at least try. At the beginning, we did it gradually, it took over three months,
it wasn't something that was just done. We give it a trial run and if it works, we stick
with it. It was hectic in the beginning, but what we noticed was that we had more positives
than negatives and the staff started to buy into the program, the residents were a lot
more alert. We on the other side we had been seeing the residents to be more, be able to
interact more with the staff, they are able to let us know what is going on and also knowing
what they need being able to provide their needs in a more effective way. And able to
communicate more and their appetite more and awake more and they sleep better at night
because they stay more awake in activities during the day, so the outcome was very good,
now the residents are happy and able to communicate with you and able to tell you their needs and it's beautiful.
They are very receptive, they smile better, they associate with others better.
We find them to be very more social, more active, their energy is much higher,
they’re more interactive with their families, they're interactive with the team members
and the facility, they show more motivation towards their care, they’re more happy.
Their involvement was a lot more. They were more participating in their care, and because
of that we had a positive influence on everything that was going on in the facility. So we
have a positive movement and we just build on that. And that’s what brought us to today.
Now we are providing the care that they want, not what we think. And that is very important.