We have joined hands with “One Warm Coat” a non-profit organization to keep our local community warm.  Our goal is to collect as many gently used or new coats for our needy families and individuals in San Luis Obispo County.  Needing assistance we have asked Community Action Partnership, formerly EOC, to give us a number for how many families, individual men, women and children that are in need of coats.  Times are tough due to the economic downfall, for either a single parent family trying to make ends meet or simply a person who is unemployed.  Can you imagine parents having to make a decision to either purchase food or a warm coat? Which one is more important?  Let’s help ease their decision by collecting as many coats as possible right here in our neighborhood!  Our current community outreach started two years ago, feeding the homeless at Maxine Lewis Homeless Shelter, and  we became a  Food Bank distribution site just a year ago. We want to take on the enjoyable experience of collecting warm coats!  We are “People Caring For People Caring For People”, but we need your support to help keep our community stay warm and fuzzy.  We are collecting during the entire month of November, for a reachable goal of 300 coats.  Start by looking through your closets and forward the  gently used or new coats to Mission View Health Center.  

If you would like more information please contact Mission View Health Center ext. 204. For more information on “One Warm Coat” please click the link:  www.onewarmcoat.org

The Excellence in Programming Awards were instituted to recognize individual CAHF member facilities and homes for superior achievement in key areas of long-term care, and to share those success stories with other providers.

Bayside Care Center will be presented with a plaque on Tuesday, November 15 at the second House of Delegates session during CAHF’s 2011 Annual Convention at the Palms Springs Renaissance hotel in Palm Springs.

Nursing facilities have made tremendous strides in the past 25 years. An abundance of truly compassionate, highly trained caregivers is common in most facilities, and many facilities provide state-of-the-art services with deluxe accommodations.

Having highly competent staff working around the clock, being provided more choices in their daily lives, and having ample opportunities to socialize and engage in activities, it would seem that residents have everything they need, right? So why, according to the American Geriatrics Society, do nearly half of all nursing facility residents experience apathy and depression?

Historically, nursing facilities have borrowed the acute hospital model of care—clinical excellence and compassionate care. Both are needed and fundamental to what hospitals and nursing facilities do. This model works well in the acute-care setting where people are soon going back to their homes. However, for nursing facility residents, this model leaves them in the long-term position of a “care receiver.”

Even if the care is of the highest caliber and staff are beyond wonderful, residents are left with their greatest fear realized: “No one needs me anymore; I am now just a burden on society.”

Without an opportunity to give back in a real and meaningful way, the stage is set for apathy and depression.

Making The Switch

In 2008, staff members at Mission View Health Center in San Luis Obispo, Calif., were brainstorming about why their residents seemed unfulfilled and unhappy, in spite of excellent treatment and care—they didn’t have that spark in their eyes. Kathy, a resident, had recently asked the administrator, “Isn’t there something I can do? Any way I can help? I am bored to tears—and I mean tears.”

A nurse assistant commented that his “life would suck if all I had to look forward to every day was thanking everyone for helping me and no one needed me anymore.”

For the first time, it struck the group that the residents really were relegated to the role of “care receivers,” no matter how good the staff were as “caregivers.” As a result, Mission View adopted a service-based approach to health care, allowing residents to give as well as receive.

In order to accomplish this goal, Mission View would align itself with the needs of the local community. By partnering with a local homeless shelter, Mission View staff set the wheels in motion for their first resident service opportunity to feed the homeless in their community.

To support this venture, residents use the activities budget to make Helping Hands Homemade Soap and sell it at the local farmers market.

At first, residents weren’t particularly excited about what they considered another arts and crafts activity. However, when the residents understood the bigger picture of feeding the homeless, there was a change of heart. They realized they were needed and could make a real difference in their community.

Today, residents with dementia use water color to decorate the soap wrappers, three residents in their 90s hawk the soap at the farmers market, while residents with vision problems and physical disabilities help prepare the meals.

Six of the residents serve food onto the plates of 150 men, women, and children at the shelter every month.

Clearly, for the residents, the activity was not about making and selling soap, but about making a difference in their community. Because the shelter truly depends on them, the residents experience purpose and meaning in their lives, as well as the joy and fulfillment of service.

Giving More

Following the success of Helping Hands, Mission View began working with a local hospice agency. Within two weeks, the first seven-week resident training was underway, enabling residents to become certified hospice volunteers, helping other residents who sometimes simply needed someone to hold their hand.

Staff at Mission View started seeing that residents were regaining that spark in their eyes; after all, when they roll out of their room as a hospice volunteer to visit another resident, they are a hospice volunteer, not a resident, and have a hospice badge to prove it.

The service-based approach extends to facility activities as well. Even with physical and cognitive challenges, residents are more capable than commonly believed.

For example, a very unhappy and cranky resident who had suffered a stroke and left-sided paralysis changed his attitude when staff realized he was bilingual and called on him to become the facility Spanish instructor.

He now spends his week planning his class and making sure he is clean-shaven and looking sharp for his lesson. Residents love his class and can be seen practicing their Spanish up and down the halls.

Word Has Spread

Initially at Mission View, staff could not picture their residents feeding the homeless, opening a food bank distribution point at the facility, or running a nonprofit business like Helping Hands Handmade Soap. And yet, it is actually happening.

It’s easy to underestimate the potential of nursing facility residents, especially when they are in a depressed and apathetic state. It is important to focus on what they can do and remind them that they can still be valuable members of their community.

Today, 40 to 50 percent of all Mission View residents are actively involved in service projects. With Mission View’s success, additional nursing facilities under the Compass Health umbrella are adopting similar programs.

Residents in one facility are baking and selling dog biscuits to help rescue elderly dogs from a local shelter. Another group is selling handmade jewelry to buy backpacks and stock them with school supplies for local underprivileged children.

Having heard about the program, another provider with 30 facilities is adopting the same program for its residents.

The cost of this culture change? It’s virtually free, with a little time and effort.

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once said about service, “Everybody can be great, because anybody can serve … you only need a heart full of grace.”

To purchase the residents’ Helping Hands Handmade Soap, go to www.missionview.etsy.com.

Matthew Lysobey, MPH, LNHA, has worked in the long term care industry for more than 15 years and spearheads the Compass Health service-based approach in San Luis Obispo, Calif. Lysobey can be reached at matthew@compass-health.com.

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All the proceeds from our community-renown homemade all-natural dog treats will be used to pay the adoption fees of senior dogs looking for homes within our local shelters…

… because we believe all it takes is a second look to give these loving animals a second chance to touch a life.

To learn more about our four legged senior friends looking for a good home, please contact. Makena Tolley at makena@baysidecarecenter.com. You can also visit our shop on Etsy.

VIDEO: A local senior care center makes treats for furry friends

DCC welcomes the community to stop by anytime and tour our beautiful homelike environment.

Here’s to 50 more years of serving the local community.

Mission View Health Center’s most recent community project is making “Helping Hands Hand Soap,” a glycerin-based soap in a variety of shapes, colors and scents. Each bar of soap has been wrapped in paper that has been hand painted with love by one of our residents. We firmly believe that all that is required to help our community is a “heart” to serve. Residents of all ages and abilities have participated in this project and take great pride in their efforts. All proceeds will go to local charities, which will be chosen by our residents. By supporting this project, you are changing lives both in and out of our nursing home.

Order online!

To order, visit our online shop, download and fax our order form or call (805) 543-0210

The nursing shortage across the country is only expected to get worse.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 2.9 million registered nurses will be employed in the year 2012; however, more than one million jobs need to be filled.

In fact, there is a workforce shortage across the medical field.

In this special report, “Where The Jobs Are,” we show you whose hiring, but it takes a certain kind of person to work in the health care industry, especially alongside patients.

“Think of them as your family: love, respect and dignity, that’s the main thing,” said Jevir Ibuna, a registered nurse at San Luis Transitional Care.

It is one of eight skilled nursing and assisted living facilities in San Luis Obispo County owned by Compass Health.

She has worked for the company for 15 years and with nine available positions you could soon start a long career with compass health, as well.

“Our business is run 24 hours/day 365 days/year, so it takes a lot of staff to keep the services provided,” said Compass Health Administrator Marcy Woolpert.

Registered and licensed vocational nurses and therapists are the main positions available; however, applications are always being accepted because the need at these facilities is only expected to grow as the baby boomers age.

“As the baby boomers require a need of our services we want to make sure we are there for them,” said Woolpert.

From assisted living to short term care, Catholic Healthcare West owns three hospitals on the Central Coast: Marian Medical Center in Santa Maria, Arroyo Grande Community Hospital and French Medical Center in San Luis Obispo.

There are more than 110 positions currently available.

“About 70 of those jobs are at Marian and the other jobs are distributed between the other two hospitals,” said the Vice President of Human Resources Susan Winsell.

While most of those jobs are for registered nurses, there are also plenty of non-nursing positions available.

“A lot of people think about the shortage of nursing jobs in hospitals, but nationwide there are shortages in just about every category of jobs that exist in hospitals,” said Winsell.

If you are hired as part of the support team, such as in housekeeping, CHW offers training programs for other positions.

Marian is in the middle of building a new hospital twice the size of its current location.

Winsell could not put an exact number on it, but it will definitely create jobs. “A hospital is staffed according to patient volume. As the capacity grows and the volume grows we will add staff.”

Tenet Healthcare hospitals, Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center and Twin Cities Community Center, have eight and three full time positions available, respectively. All require some sort of previous health care experience or certification.

For those looking for work outside a hospital setting, Central Coast Pathology currently has four positions available: two require no experience or schooling, a position in the medical lab requires a bachelor’s degree, there is also a clinical laboratory scientist position available and they are always on the look out phlebotomists (a person who draws blood).

Our local hospitals and Compass Health also team up with community colleges to put students to work as nursing assistants with the hopes of eventually hiring them once their schooling is complete.

Most jobs in the health care industry are not for the squeamish. They are looking for people with tough skin and kind hearts. If that is you help is wanted, inquire within.

Posted: May 17, 2011 7:29 PM by Carina Corral

The participants are as follows:

• Alison Whitaker, Marta Aliaga (MVHC)
• Myla Dagulo, Meghan Rivera (SLTC)
• Kim Hagin (Ventana Grill)
• Cate Guisinger (VHHC)

We will celebrate their participation by hosting a luncheon for them on May 20th, 2011 at Ventana Grill.

Instead of going to a hospital, hospice patients needing immediate care now have another option.

“We’ve dreamed of having a space where families could actually spend quality time with their loved ones in a hospice situation,”

said Mission View Health Administrator Matthew Lysobey.

Their dream is now a reality.

Hospice patients needing immediate, short term care can now go to Hospice Partners at Mission View, a homelike setting facility for end-of-life care with skilled professionals.

“The expert hospice staff here will get their symptoms under control, will stabilize them and then discharge them back to their home,” said Hospice Partners of the Central Coast Administrator Janet Jeffery.

Before the center opened, these hospice patients would check into a hospital, but when you’re receiving end-of-life care the best medicine is comfort.

“It’s about treating the symptoms so the individual can have the highest quality of their life while they’re still with us,” said Wilshire Health President/CEO Tricia Ritchie.

It was once a 32-bed wing at Compass Health’s Mission View Health Center.

It has since been renovated down to seven suites, with a sofa bed in each one to accommodate loves ones, kitchenettes, common areas, and rooms for musical therapists, spiritual counselors, and more.

“Our philosophy is everyday is about living only the last day is about dying,” said Ritchie.

This was all made possible through a partnership between Hospice Partners of the Central Coast and Compass Health.

If successful, the plan is to open two more centers: one in the northern and southern portions of San Luis Obispo County.

Posted: Mar 11, 2011 11:49 AM by Carina Corral View Article