Hennis Care Centre
Dover, Ohio

Background
Hennis Care Center is a 150 bed skilled facility in Dover, Ohio. The facility, like many others, used paper based supportive documentation for many years to capture ADLs, Mood and Behavior, Restorative, and other types of supportive documentation.

Challenge
Hennis Care Center strives for very high levels of care by implementing strong staff development and innovative ways to achieve staff sensitivity toward the residents. Many of the licensed nurses are trained in the entire MDS to improve communication and understanding about the process.

Anita Peffer, Director of Clinical Services at Hennis, always felt that paper forms were very ineffective because caregivers tended to copy from shift to shift, answers were left blank, and data retrieval was next to impossible. Consequently, she and her staff went to great lengths to ensure that their supportive documentation was as accurate as it could be in spite of these challenges. Ongoing training was provided and continual monitoring kept their RUGS levels and Case Mix Index at a high level.

Solution
In 1997, Hennis Care Center implemented an early version of Resource Systems’ CareTracker system. Through several upgrades Hennis moved through the use of Palm Pilots to the current version of CareTracker using touch screen devices (kiosks) located at strategic locations throughout the facility to replace these paper forms. They now have 13 kiosks and have implemented many of the features in CareTracker.

"The Palm Pilots were good for some applications but within a few months many of our staff eventually fell back into poor documentation habits,” said Anita. “Our staff found them to be somewhat difficult to read and use which didn’t give us much benefit.”

The touch screen kiosks solve all of those problems. Management indicates that staff members feel empowered by the fact that their assessments and observations are used as a vital part of the care process. When we got the kiosks it was absolutely dramatic. I can't put any retention numbers to it, but we would purchase the system for the staffing benefits alone if we were doing it again." Anita said.

Results
The MDS process has improved with CareTracker. Robin Miller, MDS Coordinator at Hennis, has been working at Hennis Care Center for many years. She believes the information is much more accurate and reflects more accurately what is going on. “The information is there when we need it. It is legible and we don’t have to worry,” Robin said.

The housekeeping staff recently began using CareTracker because they sometimes hear more than the nursing assistants. They may be in the room dusting and many times a resident will say something like they are dizzy or they might be crying which is something they wouldn’t do in front of the caregivers. By allowing the housekeepers to record these observations, the potential for better care and higher RUGs weight scores exists.

Increased accuracy has translated into better care through better staffing. When we know our ADL scores are accurate, we can look at staffing and see that one shift needs help and adjust accordingly instead of looking at it from a traditional standpoint and saying, “I don’t know why the assignments aren’t getting done because they have the same number of residents. As the acuity goes up and down, we know where our staffing needs to be,” said Anita.

Dave Hennis, owner of Hennis Care Center, has been in the long term care business from his early childhood helping the family run the facility. In an effort to maintain profitability, some owners elect to cut expenses which affects the facility’s services and moral. Hennis prefers to look at the revenue side of the equation. By capturing the information needed to receive total entitlement, the facility can maintain its services and its profitability.