By Cean Eppelheimer
Cean Eppelheimer
Cean is a Training & Organizational Development Specialist with PHI’s Training and Organizational Development team.
PHI and the NCB Capital Impact Green House® Project have been long-time partners in support of quality care and quality jobs in long-term care communities across the country. Early on in the development of the Green House model, PHI was enlisted to imbed its Coaching Approach℠ in the educational offerings for all Green House care partners–including the formal leadership team, nurses, and the self-managed work team of Shahbazim.
Now, PHI and NCB have come together again, this time to develop a support process for nursing homes on Green House campuses.
The operating framework for the Green House philosophy includes:
- Meaningful engagement, and the power of individual preferences and natural rhythms
- Training staff to build relationships, engage in self-managed teams, and ensure high quality of care and life
- Celebrating individuality: diversity, life stories, growth and continued development
- Intentional community: involving family, volunteers and the community at large
- An environment of home that is free of institutional trappings
The implementation of the Green House model can take many forms, with some organizations choosing to replace the existing nursing home with several individual Green House homes, while others build one or two Green House homes and keep the existing nursing home intact. We refer to nursing homes that operate side by side to a Green House, as Legacy Homes.
Tools to Support Culture Change at Legacy Homes
Over the years, it has become apparent that a long-term care campus that operates a Legacy Home simultaneously with the implementation of Green House homes may experience two separate, very different cultures: a new person-directed home alongside a traditional institution. The alignment of the culture between Green House Homes and Legacy Nursing Homes is the focus of the most recent PHI/NCB collaboration.
Together, PHI and the Green House Team have compiled tools and support systems that include a comprehensive culture change process for Legacy Homes that is based upon years of evidence-based lessons learned in the field.
Although the operations in a Legacy Home can look very different from that of the Green House, policies, procedures, and practices can still be driven by the same philosophy and principles. The intent is to provide support, education, and recommended system changes for the Legacy Home so that it can operate from the same core values as the Green House– allowing both elders and staff the opportunity to engage in a more respectful, fulfilling life and work experience.
Legacy Home support work can be done with new Green House projects or with an existing Green House campus.
For more information contact the Green House project at: www.thegreenhouseproject.org.
