Continuing Care

Spectrum Health Rehab and Nursing Center Reaffirms Their Commitment to Quality of Care and Quality of Life for Their Elders

Spectrum Health Reed City Rehab and Nursing Center has reaffirmed its commitment to improving quality of life by completing the first major milestone of The Path to Mastery™:  The Art of Creating a Caring Community.  This powerful new tool developed by The Eden Alternative® guides organizations through the process of transforming their culture by applying person directed care practices.  Through this approach, decisions and action around care honor the voices and choices of care recipients and those working most closely with them.

The Eden Alternative is a national leader in the culture change movement in long term care, most notably in nursing homes and other institutional settings.  Through the Path to Mastery, long term care organizations can now share environments.  Spectrum Health Reed City Rehab and Nursing believes its completion of Milestone 1 is a legacy to future generations of leaders.  Lessons learned can be shared with others, ensuring that Elders and employees will continue to benefit from culture change efforts.

“Step by step, the Path to Mastery Milestones will guide our organization further down the road to successful culture change,” says Connie Hervey, chief clinical officer and nursing home administrator.  “We at Spectrum Health Reed City Rehab and Nursing Center have been on the Eden Alternative culture change journey for over 10 years.  The Path to Mastery experience with each milestone will be shared with other organizations to inspire them to initiate these types of changes.”  The word “path” is a reference to how the transformation of a nursing home into a human habitat is a never ending journey. The word “mastery” refers to how homes grow with The Eden Alternative Philosophy. Progress is taken in small steps over time, and new skills are mastered and incorporated into the whole of the organization before the next steps are taken.

Hervey shares that completing Milestone 1 has helped them to reflect on positive accomplishments and to appreciate how far they have come with putting the Eden Principles into practice.  “By completing Milestone 1, we have demonstrated real progress in moving our organization toward person directed care.  For example, the elders now have choices in every aspect of their lives just as they would in their own home. The staff has fully embraced person directed care and worked hard to honor elder choices and requests that affect their environment or personal care. When an elder expresses a desire to do something outside of the everyday routine the staff go above and beyond to make it happen.

This news is timely and important given the country’s current demographic makeup and the aging of America.  Changing the culture of care environments is important to overall public health.  Improving the way we, as a society provide long-term care will have a significant impact on many millions of Americans, as the population ages and begins to rely more on support to meet basic daily needs.

Spectrum Health Reed City Hospital Rehab and Nursing Center received the highest overall U.S. News & World Report’s 2011 Best Nursing Homes rating from the government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The five-star ranking was given to 63 nursing homes in the state. Only about one nursing home in seven in the nation met the five-star standard. Spectrum Health Reed City Hospital Rehab and Nursing Center is also a10-star Eden Home, a designator that signifies the home has fully integrated all 10 Eden Alternative principles. The Eden Alternative is based upon transforming institutional approaches to care into communities of care where elders find life is worth living.