Please Welcome Karen Pastrana, Development & Community Relations Manager

We are pleased to welcome Karen Pastrana to a newly created position at Homestead Village, Development and Community Relations Manager.  Karen will be responsible for a wide variety of duties at Homestead Village, including overseeing and ensuring the successful of our development program, public relations, volunteer recruitment, assisting with marketing and managing the use of the PRC building by outside organizations and individuals.

Karen has a wealth of experience, having owned her own home care agency and worked for both Armstrong and The Jay Group.  Karen has more than two decades of corporate leadership experience and owned her own business for 4 years.  Please welcome Karen to Homestead Village

Homestead Board Approves new Vision Statement

At its June Board Meeting, the Homestead Village Board of Directors approved a new vision statement, the first change in over ten years.  The new vision came out of a department leader retreat held in April of this year and was carefully crafted from a list of key visionary statements identified by Homestead's leaders.  In addition many other organization vision statements were reviewed to find the right balance between brevity and content.  The resulting statement is a unique vision of Homestead Village's preferred future.

Working in harmony with the Homestead Village Mission Statement, "Enhancing independence and dignity as together we create a compassionate community", the vision clearly articulates what a compassionate community should be.  It identifies kindness, respect, skill, individuality, engagement, improvement and wellness as the keys to creating a bright and successful future. It is our hope that this vision statement, along with our mission, values and philosophy of care will establish clear principles and standards through which we will grow and prosper.

Two new team members join the Apostles Center Staff

Please join with me in welcoming Jessica Good and Krista Murphy-Denlinger to the Homestead Village team.  Both will become part of the Apostles Center Leadership Team.

Jessica is our new Registered Nurse Assessment Coordinator (RNAC), a very specialized RN who uses her skills to complete all of the documentation required by both the federal and state government.  As RNAC, Mr. Good will ensure completion of the Minimum Data Set which is used to both care plan resident needs and for reimbursement from the Medicare and Medicaid programs.  The RNAC position is very important from both a clinical and financial standpoint.  Jessica earned her RN deagree at Lancaster General Hospital School of Nursing and her BSN from Millersville University.  Our previous RNAC, Claire Salve, had worked for Homestead Village for many years; but due to family issues needed to resign from the RNAC position.

Krista Murphy-Denlinger is returning to Homestead Village after a four year hiatus.  Her new role will be Social Worker for the Apostles Center for Care.  She will be very familiar to many Homestead Village stakeholders as she worked in the dining services department form 1995-2010, starting when she was a high school student and continued to work here on weekends while working as a social worker elsewhere.  Krista is also the wife of Rich Denlinger, Supervisor of Grounds.  Krista earned her Bachelors Degree from Shippensburg University in 2001 and her Masters from Temple University in 2005.  She will be coordinating both social services and admissions for the Apostles Center.  Our current Social Worker, Ilyasha Kling has accepted a position with the Pennsylvania Department of Health in Harrisburg.  We wish Ilyasha much success in her new position.

The Person Centered Transformation continues in the Apostles Center for Care

Periodically we post about the changes/improvements to the Apostles Center for Care.  Six months ago we highlighted the improved life enrichment program and ongoing culture changes.  Here is the latest update.

Eight years ago we began a journey to transform our nursing home from cold and institutional to a more home-like, person centered environment.  Those first steps were challenging but they got the ball rolling.  We eliminated the frequent rotating of staff assignments. We eliminated institutional meal service where most of the meals were served on trays that came out of the kitchen.  We eliminated the large fort-like nurses station that separated the staff from the residents.  We began working in smaller teams of staff to care for our elders.

Then in 2010, we began the physical transformation of the Apostles Center.  Moving every wall in the central section, we created two distinct houses, Fickes House and Radcliffe House, each with its own living room dining room, kitchen, spa and sun room.  We created a parlor for small gatherings and care conferences and actual offices for staff to work in (something that was in short supply for the first 24 years).  In the resident rooms, we added a privacy wall, flat screen TVs for each resident, improved lighting and a full bathroom including a shower and heat!  The new Apostles Center featured a kitchen at its very center, making made to order meals for residents at every meal a priority.

The physical changes were breathtaking and created a much nicer environment in which to live and work.  We did not stop there.  We brought in the premier providers of memory support training in the country and trained all of our staff in true person centered training.  The training focused on residents with Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia; but the principles applied to everyone.  We had accomplished a lot over a period of about six years.

This past year we have focused even more attention on the Apostles Center to improve our care even more. We installed magnetic locks on all of the doors to provide a more secure environment, minimizing the chances of a resident wandering away as well as keeping out intruders who don't belong.  We implemented a new personal laundry service that allows each resident to have their personal laundry individually washed and folded rather than the old method of sending it to the institutional laundry with the bed linens, towels and washcloths.

We are transforming Fickes House into a true memory support household.  Significantly enhanced Life Enrichment staffing is the core of this transformation; but every staff member will also receive additional training through the SELF program, a series of educational programs that consist of both self learning modules and group activities designed to great increase each caregiver's understanding and ability to meet the needs of residents with memory support needs. We are developing the Fickes House outdoor patio to be a safe and secure outdoor area.

We have implemented a new electronic health record to vastly improve our record keeping, data tracking and response to resident needs.  PointClickCare is the most widely used nursing home electronic health record in the country.  Eventually all aspects of care will be tracked electronically and the need for massive paper charts will decrease dramatically.

We will not stop there.  Over the next year, we will continue to look for better ways to create a more home-like and enjoyable environment for our residents to live and our staff to work.  Together we will make the Apostles Center for Care at Homestead Village a truly home-like experience.

Living in a Compassionate Community

Our mission states it.  We often talk about it.  Homestead Village is a compassionate community.  Residents serve the greater Lancaster community in so many different ways.

One of the best examples of that dedication is the service that Homestead Village residents give to Schreiber Pediatric.  Many Homestead residents volunteer at Schreiber on a regular basis.  Recently, our residents held their third Jewelry "shop" at Schreiber Pediatric, blessing dozens of children and giving them the opportunity to surprise their mothers with beautiful jewelry for Mothers' Day.  It is compassionate for residents of Homestead Village to want to bless the young children being helped by Schreiber; and to think of their mothers, too.

 It was also generous of them to contribute their own jewelry and/or to go out and purchase new jewelry for the shop.

That exemplifies the Homestead Village spirit of compassionate community. From volunteering all around Lancaster county to helping each other, Homestead residents understand the concept of "loving your neighbor."  They display it every day!

Homestead's Role in the Community

Homestead Village is a wonderful community of individuals 62 and older living vibrant and interesting lives, helping each other and helping the greater community.  Homestead Village is a large employer providing full time jobs for over 100 individuals and even more part-time jobs, providing a full range of benefits and creating a great place to work.  Homestead Village is a leading business in our community, paying taxes to the local school district and local municipalities.  Homestead Village is a member of local, state and national associations and a partner with many schools and other institutions to promote education and healthcare in the community.   Homestead Village is a charitable, non-profit, mission driven organization.  Even with all that we contribute, there is ongoing pressure on Homestead to do more, to contribute more and do it with flat or reduced revenue from Medicare and Medicaid.

Unlike most businesses, Homestead Village is a community of citizens as well as a revenue producing non-profit organization.  In reality, Homestead Village has a tremendous effect on the greater Lancaster community as most individual residents contribute and volunteer throughout Lancaster County and then come together as Homestead Village and impact the Lancaster community even more!

All non-profits try to capture and report their impact on the greater community in order to fulfill the charitable nature of the organization.  Homestead Village is no different.  We ask residents to document their volunteer hours while at Homestead Village and we ask residents to contribute to various community assistance projects that we pursue each year.  Another non-profit in our local community is our local fire department.   While they receive some assistance from the municipality, they are dependent on citizen support.  The fire department looks at Homestead Village as a large user of fire and emergency services and asks us to pledge large donations toward their services.  We believe we can have an even greater impact on the fire company if Homestead residents contribute individually to the Rohrerstown Fire Company.  You have numerous avenues to contribute.  If you receive a direct mail request you can respond directly.  Or you can send your contribution to the address below:

Rohrerstown Fire Company
500 Elizabeth Street
Lancaster, PA  17603

The third way to contribute is to drop off a check made out to Rohrerstown Fire Company at the Homestead Village Receptionist Desk.  We will deliver all checks received by the end of May, 2014.

Whatever method you choose, please let Mary Shaeffer know how much you contributed so that we can capture the total positive impact that Homestead Village has on the fire company and on our overall community.

Thank you for all that you do to make Lancaster a better place.

New Electronic Health Record Revolutionizes Care

How hard can it be to move from paper files to electronic health records?  The Homestead Village staff members who are responsible for implementing the new electronic health record are learning first hand!  Paper medical records include physician orders and notes, nursing and other clinical documentation, tests, care plans, medication and treatment records, and caregiver documentation.  For some residents, the paper medical record can grow to mutiple file cabinets!  Each doument has to be filed exertly by our Medical Records Staff so that it can be located when needed.  The biggest problem with paper medical records is that the documentation is hard to track, requiring many other logs and reports to track resident care.

So there is no question that electronic records that automatically alert when results are outside of expected parameters is a tremendous leap forward.  The challenge is that all of the current care plans, diagnosis, documentation, specific data tracking, medication and treatment plans need to be pre-loaded into our new electronic health record, PointClickCare, before it will work.  Our nurses in the Apostles Center, Gelhard House and Supportive Services have been diligently uploading the information for the past three months. We now expect to go live with PointClickcare March 24th.  On that date, everything will change!