MINNESOTA
Argentum state partner LeadingAge Minnesota hosts a maltreatment and abuse prevention taskforce to examine what “we can do as an organization and as a profession to prevent elder abuse before it occurs,” said Gayle Kvenvold, LeadingAge Minnesota president & CEO and member of the Argentum Board of Directors. “We’ve been closely studying the patient safety movement and asking how that could be applied to older adult services.”
LeadingAge Minnesota “has worked to educate its members for years about identifying and preventing maltreatment,” said Jonathan Lips, the group’s vice president of legal and regulatory affairs. “We make sure our members across the spectrum are well-educated about preventing, identifying, reporting, and investigating any instances as required to do, and in spring 2017 our board of directors encouraged us to put a stronger focus on the issue.”
The taskforce, which is led by Lips and Julie Apold, vice president of quality and performance excellence for LeadingAge Minnesota, reviewed about two years’ worth of state data and analysis on elder abuse, looking to get a clearer picture on the types and frequency of maltreatment. The group used the data to identify a set of problem statements. “That’s what we’re trying to solve, with the second phase the root cause analysis,” said Apold.
The taskforce review found that the majority of events that were substantiated were cases of neglect, but those neglect cases were mostly attributed to human error or systems issues. “Some cases were due to bad actors, but the majority of the cases we studied had issues around systems and processes and have opportunities for improvement,” said Apold. “Our findings really shaped our goals. We found we had two buckets—those focusing around cases of human error where there was opportunity for improvement, and those related to drug diversion and financial exploitation as related to abuse.”
Now the taskforce is working to identify appropriate actions to recommend to its members.
Last fall, LeadingAge Minnesota participated with the state’s health department to hold meetings with stakeholders such as consumers, state agencies, and advocacy groups to address the rising number of maltreatment reports in Minnesota, to collectively identify the state’s processes, and to “hopefully prevent and reverse those trends,” said Lips. “It was extremely valuable to be a part of the discussion and understand different groups’ perspectives.”
Kvenvold is also board chair of the Minnesota Alliance for Patient Safety (MAPS), which is comprised of a coalition of state agencies including health care experts, doctors, and insurers. “We’re looking at how across a broad continuum you can prevent maltreatment before it occurs and are specifically looking at how engagement of residents and family plays into the culture,” she said.
“We're looking at how across a broad continuum you can prevent maltreatment before it occurs and are specifically looking at how engagement of residents and family plays into the culture,” said Kvenvold, LeadingAge Minnesota president & CEO.
Every other year, MAPS sponsors a conference on safety, and this October the focus will be on older adult settings. “We are looking at how we can take almost 20 years of work in the safety arena and apply it to senior living,” said Kvenvold.
LeadingAge Minnesota rolled out its Professional Excellence in Aging Services initiative last May and invited members to participate. It follows the Baldrige performance excellence framework by embracing data and teamwork. Seventy-two members signed on at launch with another 20 by spring 2018.
“This work is extremely important but obviously difficult,” said Kvenvold. “Identifying solutions is productive and uplifting and we know that as we look ahead it will require additional partnerships with states. The solutions need to be practical, implementable, and effective. …We’ve got more work ahead.”
JULY/AUGUST 2018
ARGENTUM.ORG 15
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64
