Villa Healthcare is PDPM Positive: Patient-Driven Payment Model Allows Holistic Understanding and Treatment for Patients

SKOKIE, Ill., Aug. 8, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- If there is one constant in the skilled nursing industry, it's change. The skilled nursing industry will undergo another significant change in about eight weeks on October 1 as it adapts to PDPM (Patient-Driven Payment Model). While all industry media is talking about the impact of PDPM, preparation tips or advertising a new technology to 'ease' the transition, many skilled nursing operators are playing Chicken Little, lamenting about the sky falling. Villa isn't panicked about the change, but instead confident that it will be a positive model to support continued holistic understanding and treatment of patients. Villa's goal of Making People Better means understanding the whole patient, the over-arching theme of PDPM, and allows for a better understanding of inter-play between diagnoses and treatment.

Michele Self, Vice President of Clinical Strategy, leads weekly hour-long webinars for Administrators, Directors of Nursing, MDS staff, and anyone at Villa that wants to learn about the change. Self is no stranger to major healthcare changes with her previous experience leading the training and implementation from MDS 2.0 to 3.0. Self has been on the Clinical Practice Committee with the American Health Care Association (AHCA) for seven (7) years, a committee that "outlines guiding elements such as individualized care approaches, effective transitions of care, QAPI concepts, team-based care, and review and guidance of industry changes."

The team at Villa, led by Michele Self, has logged over 2,800 hours of training for the change and is implementing aspects ahead of the change. Self states "PDPM utilizes the Minimum Data Set (MDS) to continue to individualize care for the whole person. We can and will use PDPM to help us continue to Make People Better. The only way to successfully make it through any change of this proportion in a nursing facility is through education. We take education and training to the next level at Villa."

The leadership team at Villa has stressed the importance for every department to learn about PDPM. MDS Coordinators will be impacted by PDPM and their roles will transition into care managers. Admissions Directors will need to understand PDPM to know they are receiving full medical records, quickly and completely, from hospitals. Clinical Liaisons will have a sharper eye to medications and diagnoses in PDPM.

"Our nursing teams will continue to provide care and make people better. The applied nursing process and approaches around documenting the care from our nurses at every bedside will remain requirements for us and continue through PDPM. Educational emphasis and validated competency of our skilled nurses on diagnosis coding and documentation will continue. Ongoing refinement of our processes in unending, always," says Chief Nursing Officer, Michelle Scherwinski.

We're Villa, and we make people better. Of course, we're focused on quality care and good outcomes. But we're here to do so much more. Villa's leadership has a vision of rising above the status quo—of never settling, and of shattering the old image of this industry. We've always wanted to be a part of something greater, and we're making that a reality. Our commitment to our people, our environment and clinical programs will allow us to fulfill our mission of making people better. For more information, please visit http://www.VillaHC.com.

SOURCE Villa Healthcare