Liberty Commons Achieves Deficiency-Free Survey by the State Department of Public Health There are many measures of “quality” in health care. Most who do this work came to it because of a desire to help people feel better, whether helping them recover, learn to cope with a chronic condition, or even perform tasks for those who are no longer able to do so independently. Quality is often defined as success in these people encounters – and knowing that our efforts have helped and made the difficult easier for patient/resident and family alike. It is said that the service we provide is even more strictly regulated than nuclear power. The state and federal regulations amass thousands of pages, and a plethora of agencies are charged with their enforcement. It can be kind of like having every conceivable branch of law enforcement, from the FBI to the small town sheriff, setting up speed traps, each with their own perspectives on what the speed limit should be. Their onerous task is to dissect your driving, often after the fact, and tell you that you’re speeding because you can’t prove you’ve not done something wrong. Good driving certificates don’t seem to be among the things they have the ability to issue. That logic quickly takes on the shape of a pretzel, leaving us with way too much potential to have mustard on our chins. And we work to comply because this, too, has come to define “quality” in health care. At best, they can complement the achievement of helping others well, and the Liberty Commons staff has again met that success. A team of two RN’s, a social worker and dietician was on-site and concluded a week-long regulatory inspection on March 10th. They reviewed the individual cases of twenty-four of our patients/residents (which is about 20% of our inpatients!), talking with them and/or their families, watching their medications and treatments be administered, observing the care provided, and reading the detail of their medical records. They also talked privately with a resident group, and reviewed facility-wide systems ranging from disaster preparedness, to influenza vaccination. They return to Boston’s DPH recommending that we be found in substantial compliance, with no deficient practices cited or plan of correction required. So for 2014 we add “perfect” regulatory compliance to our sense that our efforts do help and make the difficult easier for those entrusted to our care. And another fine accomplishment of our outstanding group of over 200 employees.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 08:11:20 +0000
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