By proceeding, I agree that I understand the following disclosures:
I. How We Work in Washington. Based on your preferences, we provide you with information about one or more of our contracted senior living providers ("Participating Communities") and provide your Senior Living Care Information to Participating Communities. The Participating Communities may contact you directly regarding their services. APFM does not endorse or recommend any provider. It is your sole responsibility to select the appropriate care for yourself or your loved one. We work with both you and the Participating Communities in your search. We do not permit our Advisors to have an ownership interest in Participating Communities.
II. How We Are Paid. We do not charge you any fee – we are paid by the Participating Communities. Some Participating Communities pay us a percentage of the first month's standard rate for the rent and care services you select. We invoice these fees after the senior moves in.
III. When We Tour. APFM tours certain Participating Communities in Washington (typically more in metropolitan areas than in rural areas.) During the 12 month period prior to December 31, 2017, we toured 86.2% of Participating Communities with capacity for 20 or more residents.
IV. No Obligation or Commitment. You have no obligation to use or to continue to use our services. Because you pay no fee to us, you will never need to ask for a refund.
V. Complaints. Please contact our Family Feedback Line at (866) 584-7340 or
[email protected] to report any complaint. Consumers have many avenues to address a dispute with any referral service company, including the right to file a complaint with the Attorney General's office at: Consumer Protection Division, 800 5th Avenue, Ste. 2000, Seattle, 98104 or 800-551-4636.
VI. No Waiver of Your Rights. APFM does not (and may not) require or even ask consumers seeking senior housing or care services in Washington State to sign waivers of liability for losses of personal property or injury or to sign waivers of any rights established under law.I agree that: A.I authorize A Place For Mom ("APFM") to collect certain personal and contact detail information, as well as relevant health care information about me or from me about the senior family member or relative I am assisting ("Senior Living Care Information"). B.APFM may provide information to me electronically. My electronic signature on agreements and documents has the same effect as if I signed them in ink. C.APFM may send all communications to me electronically via e-mail or by access to an APFM web site. D.If I want a paper copy, I can print a copy of the Disclosures or download the Disclosures for my records. E.This E-Sign Acknowledgement and Authorization applies to these Disclosures and all future Disclosures related to APFM's services, unless I revoke my authorization. You may revoke this authorization in writing at any time (except where we have already disclosed information before receiving your revocation.) This authorization will expire after one year. F.You consent to APFM's reaching out to you using a phone system than can auto-dial numbers (we miss rotary phones, too!), but this consent is not required to use our service.
*If I am consenting on behalf of someone else, I have the proper authorization to do so. By clicking Get My Results, you agree to our
Privacy Policy. You also consent to receive calls and texts, which may be autodialed, from us and our customer communities. Your consent is not a condition to using our service. Please visit our
Terms of Use. for information about our privacy practices.
One of the MAJOR causes of the nursing shortage is the fact that there are not enough qualified PhD educated Nursing Instructors for all of the College of Nursing/Nursing Schools in the US. Ten years ago when I was a Clinical Instructor for a LPN Nursing Program, I could teach even though I "ONLY" had a BSN (Bachelor of Science in Nursing). NOW Nursing Instructors for LPN programs are required to have a "MSN (Masters of Science in Nursing) ALONG WITH a Post-Masters Nursing Education Certificate". To teach BSN nursing students, Nursing Instructors are required to have a "PhD in Nursing Education". If a nurse has a MSN, but does NOT have a Nursing Education Certificate or if a nurse had a PhD but NOT in Nursing Education, then they will most likely NOT BE ABLE TO TEACH at a School/College of Nursing. Also, there is a shortage of PhD College of Nursing programs that prepare PhD and MSN Nursing Education Nurses.
I suggest that you research the RN shortage by reading what the American Nurses Association (ANA) has to say. Copy and Paste URL to your browser:
https://www.nursingworld.org/practice-policy/workforce/
Nursing Shortage Legislation and Strategies: "ANA advocates for nurses at the highest level, to ensure that the voice of 3.6 million registered nurses is heard by policymakers. ANA lobbies both houses of Congress, as well as the federal agencies, on policies and legislation to bolster the number of RNs and nurse faculty."
Find out the latest on nurse staffing issues on Capitol Hill:
https://ana.aristotle.com/SitePages/safestaffing.aspx
The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN)
https://www.aacnnursing.org/News-Information/Fact-Sheets/Nursing-Shortage website
https://www.aacnnursing.org/Portals/42/News/Factsheets/Nursing-Shortage-Factsheet-2017.pdf
I think that these websites will help you to better understand the nurse storage in the US.
I'm not really worried about the quality of care from the mom's nursing staff, just concerned that the current system(s) aren't sustainable, and it seems nobody outside the workers themselves are talking about it or have even noticed.
It sounds like the nursing home is having a Care Plan Conference with the family only when the "Annual" or "Comprehensive" Assessment is completed. You need to talk to the Nursing Director and the Nursing Home Administrator and find out why Care Plan Conferences are not happening every 3 months. If they don't give you a satisfying answer, you can contact the State Long Term Care Ombudsman and tell them about the situation.
Our recovery room is still staffed by mainly nurses from other countries,, one of our float pool staff got fired for finally asking a nurse to "speak English" Not PC I know but as my own department is getting filled with people with limited ability to speak English in an inner city area.. getting report is a nightmare, the Drs complain to us ( but never to management) that they have no idea why they went along with some crazy idea because "that guy was non stop about it".. they can't understand what the RT/RN was trying to say and they figured one of us "old timers" would be in for the next shift and "just fix it".
Yes DeeAnna, 1979 here too. Nursing is hard work!
I was a candy striper- I used to fill the water containers with fresh ice. That actually was very rewarding.
I always encourage people to go into nursing. It’s been great for me. But I’ll be ready to hang up my cap soon - need to work 6 more years for full SS - not sure I will make it.
I know many who do begin the nursing curriculum then can’t pass anatomy and physiology, or the other prerequisites. You have to have smarts to do it.
I didn’t care for Pediatrics or OB/GYN either, lol.
I LOVED working at Long Term Care facilities or Nursing Homes. I was a "Candy Striper" when I was in Junior High. I wore the pink and white pinafore with a white blouse and later I worked a nurses aide at the same facility. I could have worked there as a RN if I had wanted to. There are so many specialties that nurses can work in now. And so much more medical and health information. It is mind boggling as times.
cwillie, Communication with the nursing staff is VERY IMPORTANT. The Quarterly Care Plan Conferences that are held to discuss your loved one's care is another important way for you to communicate with the nursing home staff. Ask questions, but do it with a desire to learn how your loved one is doing and not with a desire to find fault. Nurses have a tendency to "shut down" if they think that the family member is trying to get them in trouble and they won't be as cooperative with you if you are always "looking for trouble". Treat the nurses as you want to them to treat you--with respect and kindness.
Nursing has changed. The newer grads seem to come out of training not ready to really work - there’s no sitting with the patient for an hour taking a history, no time to complete a complete physical assessment, and in my experience as a patient in a hospital, no desire noted by the floor nurses to complete the above. And these nurses are assigned 6-8 patients a shift with Tech support! On evening shift back in 1982 we had 2 - 3 RN’s for 60 patients. 2 if one called out. Everything got done correctly.
When I was a new grad in 1979 nurses did it all. Now a lot is delegated to CNA’s who you can’t even be sure took a patient’s blood pressure correctly.
To me, the only accurate blood pressure is taken the old fashioned way - cuff & stethoscope. I cringe every time someone takes my BP with a machine because there are so many factors in taking an accurate blood pressure that are ignored using that damn machine.
Long term care? I could never do it. During my summer working as an aide at a nursing home I was just horrified in what I saw - elderly folk left to sit all day in gerichairs in excrement, no proper skin care, no one to feed them or hold their hand, & patients that never had a single visitor. Lots of helplessness and hopelessness.
I’ve worked direct patient care my entire career except for the past 3 years. I can just look at you and know if you are sick. Not so with many nurses these days.
BSN vs AA or diploma? In my opinion BSN’s are better trained hands down.
Fast forward to 2011; my mother needing to go to a nursing home herself.
Nothing has changed in the 35 yrs from my summer as a student nurse working at a LTC center.
I never give a nurse a rough time until I have tried all courteous avenues first as I know how a nurse needs time to process symptoms, not to be interrupted when giving meds, etc. Thankfully I haven’t had to set many straight. Give that nurse taking care of your loved one respect as she/he is doing what many cannot ( or will not ) do.
My advice - Be There! Be your loved one’s advocate, stay involved, question care but with courtesy, attend those care conferences, let the staff know that if anything happens to that
86 y/o ex dynamo (using my mom as an example) they would have to deal with me. I may have lived 4 hours away, but my brother visited my mom every day & we were fortunate to be a team.
It’s not going to get better.
Part of the problem with the nursing shortage is that there is a storage of PhD-ready Nursing Instructors for the BSN nursing programs. I was a Clinical Instructor at a LPN School of Nursing, but since I didn't have my MSN in Nursing Education, I had to quit teaching. BSN nursing programs REQUIRE PhD nursing instructors and many states require that they have PhD in Nursing Education and not a PhD as a Nurse Practitioner (NP) in any nursing specialty (which is sad because there are some GREAT NPs that could teach a lot about their specialty to the BSN students.)
Stay healthy and stay out of the hospital! As to the geriatric facilities, I try to be understanding if small boo boos are made. And this reminds us to visit our loved ones often.
There was a severe registered nurse shortage in the 1980s and we had Filipino, Portuguese, Canadian who had gotten visas to work. On the flip side, I found a weekend only job in a hospital (work 36 hours, all weekend and got paid mucho dinero).
Hospitals ought to pay better. And geriatric facilities ought to pay $10/hr. All nursing care is grueling. It breaks the nurses’ bodies and health down prematurely.
It is a COMPLETE BLOODY MESS is what it is.
Asset-stripping poorer countries - the Philippines (we went there after Nelson Mandela had asked us nicely to stop poaching all the South African nurses), Portugal, Poland, Romania - is neither ethical nor sustainable. Even before you throw in migration policies, which are also getting "interesting" worldwide.
Training your own is expensive.
Failing to distinguish between aspects of nursing that require high calibre academic and intellectual abilities, and aspects of nursing that really don't need those but DO demand exceptional vocational strengths; and deciding that all nurses must be degree qualified, then realising than graduate-calibre trainees tend not to be chock-full of the milk of human kindness, then downgrading degree courses so that everyone can get one, then realising that you've just told the less intellectually gifted ones that their humanity isn't worth sh*t but it's okay because now they have a degree so they can still be a nurse but genuinely caring whether a patient is comforted or not is bordering on unprofessional...
I exaggerate, I admit. But for me, at the very bottom of this, is a lack of recognition and true *respect* for people whose IQs may struggle into triple figures but whose compassion and industry are limitless. Instead, we've changed their jobs into work they don't like any more so that we can pretend they're basically doctors without the long words and the arrogance.
I bloody hate hate hate it. I want to write a book about it. No I don't - I want to go and kill somebody about it.
(I'm in Canada BTW, the problem isn't just an American one)
Hoca has been short staffed all year -
caregivers are being asked to work doubles and 6 days a week, and although the DON is an RN, she doesn't work the floor. LVNs are stretched thin too - New ones are hired and quit within days
Makes having extra eyes on mom even more necessary
And it’s going to get worse. Here’s my take and my health policy rant fir the day....
Aging - many RNs -as RN traditionally “women’s work”- have or are nearing retirement & there’s not RNs to replace them as lots more options for women’s education since 1970s. I went to what is viewed as top 100 school in the 70’s & early 80s, & if you hinted you were thinking of being an RN it was looked upon as a lesser form of life; you instead did your MCAT, LSAT, GRE and went onto a professional program. Nursing was a vocation not a profession with status. Nursing program was over there with the Home EC dept. I imagine this viewpoint was common. And it’s been catchup with RN #s since..... and the catch up has been to go into Masters Degree RN programs or be a nurse practitioner, like what GuestShoppe wrote about.
$ - an experienced floor RN can make 50k-75k. RN administrator 100k. A DON (director of nursing) at a bigger hospital 150k+. Smaller NH groups and independent NH cannot pay a competitive salary & benefits to match what a health science center or big hospital group can. Between my mom & MIL, we dealt with 6 different facilities and I think all had as DONs older nearing retirement age women who moved from hospital RNs to go to the NH as it was better scheduling although way less pay.
Immigration - the H-1C program has expired. Fat chance this administration will ever allow it to be reauthorized. Backstory: 1980’s when AiDS first hit, lots of RNs refused to care for anyone though to have AIDS. It was a crisis & thousands of foreign nurses got emergency visas to come to the US to work. In New Orleans where I am, huge # of Filipino RNs to big Charity & Children’s Hospital. One effect was it freed up RNs to go to work in AL & NH that were ramping up construction in the 1980s & 1990s. Emergency visas morphed into H-1C visa program under Clinton (his mom was a RN btw and a nurse anesthetist at that!) and reauthorized under Bush. Obama placed it for reauthorization but Congress refused to reauthorize it like in 2010 and the last of the 3 yr system + 3 yr appeal waiver has ended. Now nurses are lumped into the H-B1 with everyone else. The H-1CN allowed for their spouse and kids under 21 to come too and all could become US citizens eventually if they did the paperwork. I think 15% of all working RN are foreign born (25% in some cities) and due to this.
You think it’s bad now, give it another decade or less... it will be another crisis.
At all the places mom & mil were in, all had immigrant workforce. I don’t recollect ever seeing a E-verify sticker at a 1. So it’s self verification. Not a lot of folks besides recent immigrants want to work in a NH for $7.25 hr with no benefits and not full time.