Changes and progress at SDC: Message from Executive Director Karen Faria

The following was written by Sonoma Developmental Center (SDC) Executive Director Karen Faria in the latest issue of the Eldridge Press. You can read or download the entire November issue here: Eldridge Press, 11/2013.

Message from the Executive Director

On October 30th the Quarterly Governing Body Meeting occurred. Information was shared from July 2013 to September 2013. The minutes from the Governing Body meeting are available for viewing on the Intranet. I thought I would take this opportunity to share what I reported:

• The roll out plan for the Physical Nutritional Support (PNS) for this facility will be to identify high-risk individuals, have Interdisciplinary Teams review the risks and develop PNS plans per the current PNS guidelines. The state-wide PNS Policy is still in draft form and will be implemented fully at SDC when a completed policy is available.
  
• Much planning was conducted in the last quarter, but specific consolidation moves did not occur. All moves involved the relocation and return of the people who had lived in nursing residences (NF), to accommodate the installation of the new federally-required sprinkler system. Planning was conducted to determine the best moves of client service areas to make them closer to the individuals’ residences.
  
• The essential activities in the last quarter were to re-establish policies, committees and procedures that had lost their effectiveness or operational outcomes.
  
• Another major activity during the quarter was the hiring of staff into all classifications and to attempt a reduction in the amount of Mandatory Overtime use.
  
• We needed to provide sufficient information and cooperation with the Delmarva Foundation so that they could conduct their data collection for their Root Cause Analysis which was approved on 9/3/13 by California Department of Public Health.
  
• Summaries were discussed of what remains to be done in order to be fully compliant with the combined Conditions of Participation for General Acute, Nursing and Intermediate Care Facilities. (See page 2 for details)
  
• Almost all of the clinical areas have current Individual Development Plans (IDP—for staff); Program 4 and 6 are completed and NF is just about complete. Administrative Services will work on their IDPs next.
  
• Clinical Nurses are now on all ICF residences and individual health needs are just starting to be more thoroughly and timely addressed.
  
• Email accounts have been given to all of the NOC shift employees. Plans were put into place for getting drop lines and computers in the conference rooms for better recording of meetings. The older servers have been removed and data was sent to the less old servers.
  
• The return of the Administrative Services Director has improved the budget monitoring process and hiring of administrative staff just started to occur at the end of the quarter.
  
• Quality Assurance (QA) Plan and Indicators are completely developed and data is being collected. A consolidated facility-wide QA committee has been initiated and is reviewing all the data.