Foundation for Long Term Care

New York State required that a care plan be written at least four times a year for every nursing home resident. While these plans are important documents intended to manage individual nursing home residents’ health, existing care plan processes are inefficient, lengthy, and repetitive. This grant to the Foundation for Long Term Care supported development of a new, more efficient care planning process.

The Foundation for Long Term Care sought to replace this wasteful care planning process with one that is efficient and cost-saving. The project aimed to reduce the administrative burden of this regulated activity, and replace it with care documentation that more clearly and succinctly outlines the best way to care for an individual nursing home patient.

As part of this project, FLTC trained more than 1,500 staff members at 15 nursing homes to implement the Efficient and Cost-Effective Care Planning project, which is based on a successful model developed by the Wisconsin Department of Health. This project eliminated inappropriate use of staff time by transforming the existing care planning process into one that is highly personalized, and requires less time to write and implement. The project evaluated the cost savings related to staff efficiency, resident care, and overall facility costs. The results from the intervention group were compared across nursing home facilities before and after intervention implementation.