News

Skilled nursing facilities have the ability to train caregivers quickly using the Basic Care Aide and Paid Feeding Assistant programs from EduCare. The expedited training programs are eligible under the current 1135 waiver, allowing you to train Basic Care Aides in just 9 hours and paid feeding assistants within 2 hours. Basic Care Aides are eligible to work in place of traditional nursing assistants.

Appropriate use of gloves and hand hygiene practices related to glove use is an important component of effective infection prevention practices and is a practice that is frequently cited during infection control surveys.

Join Your Colleagues in Creating Safe Hand Hygiene and Glove Use Habits across our communities. The Living the Pledge Campaign monthly infection prevention campaign is now entering its second full month to help keep residents and fellow team members safe from harm.

Members interested in submitting one or more proposals for the May 19-21 LeadingAge Minnesota Institute have until 5 pm on Tuesday, December 1, 2020 to respond. Proposals can be sent using this link. Questions may be directed to Heidi Simpson at hsimpson@leadingagemn.org. Individuals and companies who submitted proposals in the summer 2020 CFP round have been contacted and asked to make a choice about how they would like their original proposal(s) handled. Copies of original proposal submissions may be requested by contacting Terri Foley tfoley@leadingagemn.org.

LeadingAge Minnesota is excited to announce that Luke Jenkins has accepted the position of Director of Membership. Luke comes to LeadingAge Minnesota with almost 10 years of experience in the senior care field, most recently serving as Director of Community Relations and then Corporate Marketing & Sales Consultant with Ebenezer. He has also been active in LeadingAge Minnesota—he is a member of our Stars Among Us Awards Committee, serves as faculty for our Sales & Marketing Certificate Program, and is a Leadership Academy fellow. Luke is a graduate of Iowa State University with a BA in Speech/Communications and a BS in Operations & Supply Chain Management. Luke’s first day is December 3. Please join us in welcoming Luke Jenkins to LeadingAge Minnesota!

At noon tomorrow (11/12), LeadingAge Minnesota CEO Gayle Kvenvold will be featured as part of LeadingAge National’s Annual Conference. Kvenvold was asked to provide a Mission Moment—a personal reflection on our missions of service in these challenging times.

A common struggle for family members of older individuals who are beginning to exhibit memory challenges is the discussion regarding stopping driving or “driving retirement.” CarFreeMe is a program for people with memory loss living in Minnesota who are considering retiring from driving or are acclimating to driving retirement. Information is available for anyone interested in participating in the program and study.

November marks National Family Caregivers Month, which celebrates the often-invisible workforce of family caregivers supporting vulnerable adults living at home. A recent AARP study estimates that nearly 42 million Americans care for family members above the age of 50, an increase of 20% from 2015. Family caregiving is both a gift and a challenge, and like so many things in 2020, the challenges of family caregiving have become more acute due to limited mobility and access to services. 

The Minnesota Healthcare Engineers Association (MHCEA) will host its 2020 Fall Conference on December 3-4.  Registration for the conference is now open, with an early-bird rate available until this Friday, Nov. 6.

Healthcare programs require clinical experiences for students to complete their education programs. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, fewer sites are partnering with educational institutions to allow clinical experiences in their settings. LeadingAge Minnesota is partnering with educators and other stakeholders to identify provider member locations that are willing to accept healthcare students for clinical experiences. If your site is willing to consider hosting clinical experiences, please complete the following 1-minute survey. We will use the survey information to match clinical sites with education institutions in need of partnership. Contact Jenna Kellerman at jkellerman@eadingagemn.org with any questions. 

This November, the LeadingAge Annual Meeting Virtual Experience will include keynote speakers Dr. Brené Brown, Vernā Myers and Scott Gottlieb addressing how to prepare for the future in the aging services field.

Throughout the months during the pandemic, we have heard some amazing stories about your staff team’s dedication and resilience. We’d love to shine the spotlight on these “COVID Silver Linings” through our annual Stars Among Us Awards.

Everyone is working hard to balance visitation and safety. LeadingAge Minnesota’s new 4-minute Safe Practices for Safe Visits video provides the 4 key safety rules

November is Mask Month! Join your colleagues in creating safe mask wearing habits across our communities.

The CNA Staffing Summit, hosted by The National Association of Health Care Assistants (NAHCA), offered an unfettered look at the career of nursing assistants and the state of our long term care work environments during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A new workforce report was released by PHI, titled Would You Stay? Rethinking Direct Care Job Quality.

HHS has developed a set of tools to spread the word that getting an annual flu vaccine is more important than ever this fall.

As with so many other resources in this time of pandemic, Juniper has moved a number of their classes online for easy remote access.

Registration is now open for the Minnesota Alliance for Patient Safety (MAPS) Annual Conference.

In the age of COVID-19, senior living designers have been hard at work to figure out what a “new normal” might look like within the industry.