Alan Helgeson (announcer):
“Reimagining Rural Health,” a podcast series brought to you by Sanford Health. In this series, we explore the challenges facing health care systems across the country from improving access to equitable care, building a sustainable workforce, and discovering innovative ways to deliver high-quality, low-cost services in rural and underserved populations. Each episode examines how Sanford Health and other health systems are advancing care for the unique communities they serve.
In this episode, Matt Holsen with Sanford Health News talks with Marie Walker, director of nursing, and Kelsey Moulzolf, administrator at Good Samaritan Society - Woodland in Brainerd, Minnesota, on how to become nationally recognized for quality care.
Matt Holsen (host):
I have with me the leadership team from the nationally recognized Good Samaritan Society - Woodland location in Brainerd, Minnesota. Marie Walker is the director of nursing, and Kelsey Moulzolf is the location administrator. Thanks for being here today.
Kelsey Moulzolf (guest):
Thank you for having us.
Marie Walker (guest):
Yes, thank you.
Matt Holsen:
Let's start with this. How does the Good Samaritan Society in Woodland become nationally recognized for providing quality care to older adults?
Kelsey Moulzolf:
Well, we have always strived at Woodland to provide high quality care for our residents in both the nursing home and assisted living. And by holding ourselves accountable, we have really been able to reach those goals and we were able to apply for this health award.
Matt Holsen:
It's an awesome recognition to have. Are there some key steps along the way?
Marie Walker:
You know, I just think wonderful teamwork is the way we achieve things. It's okay for us to call each other out and say, "oh, let's maybe do it different next time." And our whole leadership team is vested in the best interests of the residents.
Matt Holsen:
For the general public, when they hear quality, they might not know exactly what we're talking about. So, what are some of the quality indicators the industry is looking for?
Marie Walker:
At Woodland, some things that we really watch for is we look at our quality measures and determine where are we at between state and national average? We always are striving to do better. So, every month we review those, and we look at them and say, "OK, currently we have a high incidence of falls. What are we going to do to fix this issue?" And we just work on it as a team. We review at our quality meeting. If things don't go well at the quality meeting and we can't come up with a solution, then we move on to a PIP (performance improvement plan) committee and we just dig into it deeper.
Matt Holsen:
What are some of the indicators you're looking at? How is it measured?
Kelsey Moulzolf:
It's measured to other nursing homes in the U.S. and just in Minnesota. And some of those measures are pulled from CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) Five Star, some are MDH (Minnesota Department of Health), some are resident and family quality-of-life surveys. And then, of course, we also look at our Peakon, our employee surveys.
Matt Holsen:
When it comes to your team, where does the drive to be there for residents like this come from? Is it because there is a resident at the end of every decision, or how would you describe that?
Kelsey Moulzolf:
Absolutely. Yeah. And I think a lot of our staff, not only managers, are very passionate to work in long-term care. I mean, it takes our whole facility, not only managers to get us where we are.
Matt Holsen:
What challenges do you run into trying to achieve quality, and how do you overcome them?
Kelsey Moulzolf:
A lot of the data that we use is not accurate. Some of it can be a year to a year-and-a-half old. So we really kind of take our current resident population and try to compare it to that old data and improve from where we can.
Marie Walker:
Some of the other challenges that we've encountered is staff buy-in. So, to get staff to buy into the changes that we need to make as leaders, we're out there rounding with them, we're listening to them, we're praising them for their ideas. If you get them to buy in, you're on the road to success.
Matt Holsen:
You talk about staff buy in. Where do the residents and their families come into this?
Marie Walker:
Yeah, absolutely. So, residents and families obviously are also involved, and we let them know what's going on at the center level, at our resident council, our family council, and we also take ideas from them on how can we improve the care. Because if they're not happy, no one is going to be going down the right road.
Matt Holsen:
How does the community play a role?
Kelsey Moulzolf:
The community is very important. We have very close partnerships with the local hospital clinics, hospice agencies, and honestly, just by having that communication back and forth has really helped with resident cares and quality.
Matt Holsen:
Being a nationally recognized location, do you get a lot of your peers coming to you asking what worked? What are you guys doing there and what do you say to them?
Marie Walker:
I guess as a director of nursing, when I get questions or people call and they're like, "Oh, what are we going to do in this situation?" You just be upfront and honest, and you listen to what do they have going on in their center? If you have the opportunity to go to those centers, that's pretty awesome actually, to go to the other Good Sam locations and see what are you doing? And how can we learn from you and you learn from us? And just being able to be there for them, so they can vent and talk about their struggles, I guess is the biggest thing.
Kelsey Moulzolf:
And I think just being honest too. I mean, we're still learning. I mean currently we're applying for gold. We just started it a few weeks ago, but it's a long process. It's really great to learn about your building and then just hear about other people's buildings to get better.
Matt Holsen:
When you say you're applying for gold, what do you mean?
Kelsey Moulzolf:
So, we have the quality award in silver and we're applying for gold now.
Matt Holsen:
Very good. Well, I hope you get it
Kelsey Moulzolf:
Us too.
Matt Holsen:
What's the process when it comes to that?
Kelsey Moulzolf:
Gold is a very long process, so we started two weeks ago, and the application gets submitted in January. It's meetings, a couple meetings a week with gold. They also do a facility survey, so if you don't pass a facility survey, you won't get the award.
Matt Holsen:
Do you find when families and residents are looking for a place to make their next home that this matters to them?
Kelsey Moulzolf:
I think so. When we received silver, we had residents on Facebook I saw that were reposting our silver award and they made the cutest comments like, "This is why I live here." It was really great to see that.
Marie Walker:
Nice bragging rights for the families when they have families from out of town. That's one thing that struck me is, I was getting stopped in the hall and, “Marie, this is my son from Texas." And just they were explaining that we were a silver facility and what wonderful care we give, and that was just nice that they were able to brag to their families as well.
Matt Holsen:
Good Samaritan Society locations are part of the community too. So, I'm guessing the community takes pride in having such a great care facility. My last question for you both would be, what steps should families take when they're looking for a nursing home for a loved one?
Marie Walker:
Yeah, so I would recommend that they go out and look at Nursing Home (Care) Compare. There you can compare yourself to other nursing homes in the area. You can look at their five-star rating. You can look at their survey results. And then, I also highly recommend just pop in and see us. We are open to visits. We love to have people come in, tour the campus. We like to brag. We like to show you what we've got going on.
Kelsey Moulzolf:
I would agree with what Marie said. You know, if you look at nursing home compare and you're still not sure, I would go into the building. You get a real good feeling of how it is when you actually are walking in the building.
Matt Holsen:
Great advice. Congrats again on your national recognition and thanks for being here with us today.
Kelsey Moulzolf:
Thank you.
Marie Walker:
Thank you.
Alan Helgeson:
You've been listening to “Reimagining Rural Health,” a podcast series brought to you by Sanford Health. Hear more episodes in this series or other Sanford Health series on Apple, Spotify and news.sanfordhealth.org.
