If it’s October, you make your living in some manner from long-term care, and you are in Las Vegas with a large lanyard tied around your neck, then you must be at the American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL) Convention and Expo.

And so, we are.

For the next three days, Park Place Live will provide updates from the conference, be it a note, a thought, an interview, or a summary of an official presentation or event.

Let’s begin by stating the conference home, the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Resort, seems as packed as ever for an AHCA/NCAL convention, even if the street traffic on the Las Vegas Strip is thinner than usual, giving credence to media reports tourists are not coming here as often as in the past.

The conference’s official kick-off is Monday, even though Sunday was NCAL Day and packed with open discussions and presentations on any number of topics, like new methods to manage dementia care, tackling the issue of medical directors and their role in leading a care team, rehabilitation advancements, the state of assisted living and what the future may hold, and data uses in the real world.

Thoughts from NCAL Day

On the Embracing the Future of Assisted Living panel, the group tried to lay out how things are changing rapidly in the marketplace. Gerald Hamilton, president and CEO, Hamilton Management Group, said the old ways of interacting with prospective new residents has eliminated a big step. He said it used to be the introduction process would see the community inform the consumer about data points (quality, etc.), then arrange a visit.

“Now, when they call, they already looked and shopped” based on the data available online and are ready to do a tour right now. Hamilton said this fact makes it even more important to be a high-quality provider and live by your associated data footprint.

Lashuan Bethea, executive director, NCAL, said in all of her travels, she is seeing more and more effort by communities to integrate education at every step of the way, be it inside the building to staff, and to families and residents.

Pamela Truscott, director of quality improvement, NCAL, along with Hamilton and Bethea, stressed the advantages of quality improvement and for providers to take the journey that is the AHCA/NCAL Quality Award Program.

“You will never go back to where you were before the ‘quality’ journey,” Hamilton said, adding once the improvements to care are made, they act as a new floor for future improvements and will never be a ceiling.

Medical Directors and Quality

Traveling down the hall from this talk, Dr. David Gifford, longtime chief medical officer for AHCA, led a panel called, “Sustainable Quality Improvement: Alignment of Medical Director and Practitioner Partnerships.”

There, Justin Molignoni, CRNP, clinical lead, Comprehensive Rehab Consultants (CRC), discussed his group’s work and how their regular interactions with residents and staff foster strong collaboration.

"Having a physiatry team like CRC working with your residents allows faster and often earlier identification of positive as well as negative trends with residents, leading to decreases in rehospitalization and increases in functional outcomes.”

He added that “we see things early. We collaborate closely with the entire IDT team - primary care, nursing, and therapy, and can quickly jump in at the first sign of something being off with a resident and take quick collaborative action."

Molignoni described how CRC deploys physiatry, or physical medicine and rehabilitation, which is a branch of medicine that aims to enhance and restore functional ability and quality of life to those with physical impairments and disabilities. A physiatry clinician works with a facility’s interdisciplinary team to address any barriers to therapy and ensure progression toward functional goals.

Questions, or comments? Contact Patrick Connole at pconnole@parkplacelive.com.