Texas County Memorial Hospital received a grant last week that will make it the first hospital in southwest Missouri and only fourth in the state to offer a program targeted for geriatric patients.
The $13,872 grant will fund the implementation of a nationally recognized program, Nurses Improving Care for Healthsystem Elders, at the county hospital. It was awarded by the Community Foundation of the Ozarks in Springfield.
Members of the TCMH administrative team traveled to Springfield Friday to receive the grant.
“We have been providing healthcare in a rural setting for 50 years,” said Wes Murray, chief executive officer. “Our vision has been to continually improve the quality of healthcare given at TCMH, and this grant will assist us in developing our healthcare training to find better solutions to the geriatric patient’s specialized needs.”
NICHE is a nursing program that focuses on the specialized care of older adults. In 2006, more than 38 percent of the inpatients at TCMH were age 65 or older. Currently, more than 18 percent of the residents of Texas County are age 65 or older, higher than the state average of 13 percent. Locally as well as nationally, the numbers of seniors continues to rise, especially as the first baby boomers approach age 65.
“At TCMH we are always seeking ways to enhance the level of our patient care,” said Murray. “The implementation of a program like NICHE will help us significantly impact the quality of care we provide our geriatric patients.”
NICHE recognizes that seniors face special health challenges as their health declines with age. As TCMH implements the NICHE program, nurses will receive NICHE training that will help them better prepare for and focus on the needs of elderly patients.
“Our nurses will be able to recognize some of the specific geriatric-related issues like the increased occurrence of falls, states of confusion, declining mobility, urinary incontinence and sleep disturbance, to name a few,” said Doretta Todd-Willis, director of nursing at TCMH.
The CFO grant will allow three TCMH nurse managers to receive training at the national NICHE leadership and education conference. TCMH will undergo assessment and benchmark against other NICHE programs, develop strategies and establish programming, train staff and implement the program and measure outcomes and evaluate the program over the next year.
“With the implementation of the NICHE program, we expect to see among our geriatric patients greater patient satisfaction, decreased length of stay, a reduction in readmission rates and costs related to hospital care as well as an increased length of time between hospital stays,” Todd-Willis said.
TCMH will develop a “geriatric team” made up of the director of nursing and personnel from the education, medical surgical, dietary, physical therapy, emergency room, cardiopulmonary, intensive care, home health and hospice departments.
“Our geriatric team will lead the NICHE project and provide communication and consensus building among our employees that are providing all aspects of care for our elderly patients,” Todd-Willis explained.
TCMH will also designate an employee as the “NICHE Geriatric Care Coordinator.”
NICHE began in 1992 at the Hartford Institute for Geriatric Nursing at New York University College of Nursing. It has evolved into a national geriatric nursing program comprising more than 200 hospitals in more than 40 states as well as parts of Canada.
The goal of NICHE is to achieve systematic nursing change that will benefit hospitalized older patients. The vision of NICHE is for all patients 65 and over to be given sensitive and exemplary care.
CFO is a public foundation serving the Missouri Ozarks. CFO’s mission is to enhance the quality of life in our region through resource development, community grantmaking, collaboration and public leadership. CFO was founded in 1973 and has offices in Springfield and West Plains.
The grant came from the Louis and Dorothy Coover Regional Grantmaking Program, a partnership between Commerce Trust Co. and CFO. The TCMH grant was one of 11 agency awards given in this award cycle. They were drawn from a field of 62 proposals totaling about $1.67 million in requested funding.
“With so many quality proposals to choose from, the decision by our volunteer review panel to award full funding to Texas County Memorial Hospital indicates the proposal’s strength,” said Randy Russell, senior program officer with CFO. “The panel felt that the innovative strategies presented will provide quality, preventative health care opportunities and will be well extended by the hospital’s existing programming for individuals in the region.”