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Top 10 Ideas to Involve All Staff
in Advancing Excellence
Advancing Excellence in America’s Nursing Homes is a national campaign to improve the quality life
and care for residents and staff. The participation of nursing homes staff in Advancing Excellence is
essential to achieving the campaign’s quality goals.
Successful nursing homes tell us that one of the first steps on their road for excellence is involving and
listening to staff. They name their process differently—culture change, person-centered care, Quality
First, etc. And, sometimes they use different guides. But the common element is that staff from all
physical parts of the home, all time slots, and all job descriptions and disciplines are actively asked about
improving care and quality.
We have gathered some great ideas on how to involve your staff in your home’s Advancing Excellence
campaign. We have also posted on the Advancing Excellence Web site (www.nhqualitycampaign.org)
more information and details for some of these ideas. We hope that this list helps jump-start and support
your efforts for excellence in the lives of the people who live and work in your nursing home.
Top 10 ideas to involve all nursing homes staff in Advancing Excellence:

1. How to Distribute Advancing Excellence Campaign Information with Your Employees’
   Paychecks
   2&3. Communicate Your Facility Campaign Goals and Progress to Staff
2. Hold 10-Minute Stand-Up Meetings with Staff
3. Top 10 Ideas for an Advancing Excellence Kick-off Event
4. How to Form an Advancing Excellence Campaign Committee
5. How to Celebrate Your Nursing Home’s Advancing Excellence Progress
6. How to Create an Advancing Excellence Campaign Recognition Program in Your Nursing
   Home
7. Provide Staff with Talking Points on the Campaign for Discussion with Residents and
   Families
8. Sample Articles for Your Employee Newsletter about Advancing Excellence
   Please feel free to use, modify, add and tailor these ideas for your community. You can also use them to
   start discussions with your staff, and together, plan your strategy for bringing all staff on board.
   2
   Table of Contents
   Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………..3
   How to Distribute Advancing Excellence Campaign Information
   with Your Employees’ Paychecks……………………………………………………………………………………….4
   Communicate Your Facility Campaign Goals and Progress to Staff………………………….…….5
   Hold 10-Minute Stand-Up Meetings with Staff…………………………………………………………………….19
   Top 10 Ideas for an Advancing Excellence Kick-Off Event…………………………………………………..20
   How to Form an Advancing Excellence Campaign Committee…………………………….………21
   How to Celebrate Your Nursing Home’s Advancing Excellence Progress…………………………….23
   How to Create an Advancing Excellence Recognition Program in Your Nursing Homes……….24
   Provide Staff with Talking Points on the Campaign for Discussions
   with Residents and Families………………………………………………………………………………………………25
   Sample Newsletter Articles for Your Employee Newsletter
   about Advancing Excellence……………. …………………….…………………………………..……….26

Advancing Excellence in America’s Nursing Homes is a national campaign to improve the quality of care
and life for the country’s 1.5 million people receiving care in nursing homes. Nursing homes, their staff
and consumers can join in this effort by working on the campaign goals, designed to improve quality.
www.nhqualitycampaign.org
Introduction
Advancing Excellence in America’s Nursing Homes is a campaign is designed to improve the quality of
life for both nursing home residents and the staff who serve them. The campaign is led by an
unprecedented broad-based coalition of organizations representing nursing home providers, nurses,
caregivers/support staff, medical directors, quality improvement experts, consumers, government agencies
and foundations.
We all believe that every person and every organization has an important role and responsibility in
making this campaign successful—by bringing excellence to every nursing home in America. High
quality nursing home care—where each resident gets personalized, appropriate care – is important to all
of us. Nursing home residents, their families and people who may someday choose a nursing home should
be able to expect the best possible care and quality of life. Nursing home staff members deserve the
satisfaction of knowing that their hard work contributes to high quality of care and quality of life for
residents.
The Advancing Excellence in America’s Nursing Homes campaign is the first national effort to measure
quality by setting measurable “clinical quality goals” and “organizational improvement goals.” Every
nursing facility may participate by voluntarily pledging to focus on three or more goals. Nursing homes
that participate will have free access to assistance and information from quality experts to help them meet
their targeted goals. Over 20 national organizations and 48 statewide groups are participating in this
campaign.
Clinical quality goals focus on health care issues that are familiar to many—reducing pressure ulcers,
reducing physical restraints and improving pain management. Four organizational improvement goals are
believed to be basic to achieving excellence—establishing targets for improving quality, assessing
resident and family satisfaction, increasing staff retention and improving consistent assignment.
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How to Distribute Advancing Excellence Campaign Information
with your Employees’ Paychecks
Sample #1: To announce campaign
Advancing Excellence in [Name of Your Home]
With your help, [name of home] has selected three excellence goals to work on. Your
continued help, ideas, observations and brains are needed to:
• List selected goal
• List selected goal
• List selected goal
For more information about how you can help, contact [fill in name of person] or
come to the next AE team meeting on 00/00/08 in [name location] at time.
Sample #2: To announce goals’ progress
http://nhqualitycampaign.org/files/NursingHomeStaffInvolvementFactSheet.pdf
Goal Report for Advancing Excellence in [Name of Your Home]
With your amazing help and skills, [name of home] has made great progress on our three
excellence goals. Specifically, our progress to date is:
• More relief from pain among our residents; only two residents reported severe pain last
month.
• More effectively treatment of pressure ulcers; no stage #2s have gone to #3.
• Successful implementation of consistent assignment on Gettysburg and Philly wings on
all three shifts. Work starts on Albany and Bay wings next week.
And the resident council has noticed the changes. The President reports, “I know the
changes have been hard for some, but the residents and families are very happy to see the
same faces and caring hearts. Thanks and keep it up.”
For more information about how staff can become involve in the campaign, go to
http://nhqualitycampaign.org/files/NursingHomeStaffInvolvementFactSheet.pdf
4
Communicate Your Facilty Campaign Goals
and Progress to Staff
Staff involvement is a core component of successfully attaining the Advancing Excellence in America’s
Nursing Homes Campaign goals your facility has set.
Communicating the goals, and the progress toward meeting them, is critical to having the staff fully
involved.
Sample templates for communicating the goals and progress for each of the Campaign’s eight goals
follow.

1. The templates can be used as designed, or they can be modified for your specific facility.
2. The templates are designed to report the same or similar data that is measured for the Campaign
   goals.
3. The templates are designed to share with employees only, in an area that is not acccessible to
   residents and family; however, you may choose to share this data with them.
4. To make the best use of these templates, all posted data should be discussed with the employees
   shortly before or after each posting.
5. We recommend that you update the postings monthly, except for goal #1, pressure ulcers. We
   recommend updating this information weekly.
6. Keeping posted information current confirms to your staff that you are commited to improvement.
7. Consult with your corporate management, board of directors, etc. if you have questions about
   posting any of the data.
8. See the Top 10 Ideas to Involve All Staff for more ideas for more ideas for involving staff in your
   Campaign activity.
   5
   6
   Template Instructions for
   Communicating Your Facility Campaign Goals and Progress to Staff
   Goal #1 – Pressure Ulcers
9. Use the weekly “skin” report to complete this template.
10. The “Our Goal” is the percentage rate of in-house pressure ulcers you have set for your facility.
11. The “Our Rate this week” is the in-house pressure ulcer rate calculated from the weekly skin report.
12. Replace [State] with your state.
13. The state and national averages can be obtained from the Advancing Excellence in America’s Nursing
    Homes website, http://www.nhqualitycampaign.org/star_index.aspx?controls=states_map.
14. Enter the actual number of pressure ulcers in the table. Notice that it is separated by in-house, those
    that developed in the facility; and admitted, those that were present at the time of admission.
15. Enter the data from the previous three weeks.
16. Discuss this data with your staff with each updated posting.
    Goal #2 – Restraint Use
17. Use the restraint data collected for your Restraint Committee or QA committee to complete this
    template.
18. The “Our Goal” is the percentage rate of restraint use you have set for your facility.
19. The “Our Rate this month” is the restraint use rate calculated for your Restraint Committee or QA
    committee.
20. Replace [State] with your state.
21. The state and national averages can be obtained from the Advancing Excellence in America’s Nursing
    Homes website, http://www.nhqualitycampaign.org/star_index.aspx?controls=states_map.
22. Enter the total number of restraints in use in your facility.
23. Enter the data from the previous three months.
24. Discuss this data with your staff with each updated posting.
    Goal #3 – Pain Management, Long Term Residents
25. Use data from your facility’s most recent composite MDS report to complete this template.
26. The “Our Goal” is the overall percentage rate of moderate and severe pain you have set for your
    facility.
27. The “Our Rate this month” is the pain rate calculated from the MDS data.
28. Replace [State] with your state.
29. The state and national averages can be obtained from the Advancing Excellence in America’s Nursing
    Homes website, http://www.nhqualitycampaign.org/star_index.aspx?controls=states_map.
30. Enter the actual number of residents with moderate and severe pain in the table.
31. Enter the data from the previous three months.
32. Discuss this data with your staff with each updated posting.
    Goal #4 – Pain Management, Short Stay Residents
33. Use data from your facility’s most recent composite MDS report to complete this template.
34. The “Our Goal” is the overall percentage rate of moderate and severe pain you have set for your
    facility.
35. The “Our Rate this month” is the pain rate calculated from the MDS data.
36. Replace [State] with your state.
37. The state and national averages can be obtained from the Advancing Excellence in America’s Nursing
    Homes website, http://www.nhqualitycampaign.org/star_index.aspx?controls=states_map.
38. Enter the actual number of residents with moderate and severe pain in the table.
    7
39. Enter the data from the previous three months.
40. Discuss this data with your staff with each updated posting.
    Goal #5 – Establishing Goals
41. This template is to be used by all facilities. It informs the staff of which goals your facility is
    committed to improving. It changes only if you change goals.
42. Delete the goals you have not signed up for on the Advancing Excellence in America’s Nursing
    Homes website, http://www.nhqualitycampaign.org. This will leave only the goals that you are
    working on for the Campaign and their data, which is tracked on the Campaign website.
43. Delete the directions on the template.
44. Enter your facility specific goal for each of the goals.
45. Enter the current rate for each of the goals.
46. Use the specific goal templates for the goals listed.
47. Discuss the data with your staff with each updated posting.
    Goal #6 – Resident and Family Satisfaction
48. Use data from your most recent resident/family satisfaction survey to complete this template.
49. Sample survey resources can be found at
    http://www.nhqualitycampaign.org/files/SATISFACTION%20TOOL%20MATRIX.pdf.
50. Enter the satisfaction rate. If you have not completed a survey, enter “Not Available.”
51. Enter the completion date of the last survey, or the future date you plan to have completed a survey.
52. If you have completed a survey, enter the top ranked “Most satisfied” and “Least satisfied.”
53. If you have not completed the survey, leave the “Most satisfied” and “Least satisfied” areas blank.
54. Discuss this data with your staff with each updated posting.
    Goal #7 – Staff Retention
55. Two different sample templates are offered for this goal.
56. Use a staff tracking and trending report to complete either of these templates. A Calculation of
    Turnover Workbook is available on the Advancing Excellence in America’s Nursing Homes website,
    http://www.nhqualitycampaign.org/star_index.aspx?controls=nhTechAssist under Nursing Home
    Resources.
57. The “Our Rate this month” (overall, RN, LPN, and CNA) is the turnover rate calculated from the staff
    tracking and trending report. This data is entered on both sample templates.
58. Replace [State] with your state.
59. The state and national averages can be obtained from the Advancing Excellence in America’s Nursing
    Homes website, http://www.nhqualitycampaign.org/star_index.aspx?controls=states_map.
60. If using the more detailed template, enter the actual number of RNs, LPNS and CNAs hired within the
    last month. Enter the number of vacancies for each position at the end of the reporting month.
61. Enter the data from the previous three months.
62. Discuss this data with your staff with each updated posting.
    Goal #8 – Consistent Assignment
63. Use a Consistent Assignment tracking and trending report to complete this template. A tracking and
    trending tool is available at
    http://www.health.ri.gov/hsr/facilities/icp/ConsistentAssignmentChangeIdeas.pdf.
64. The “Our Goal” is the percentage rate of consistent assignments you have set for your facility.
65. The “Our Rate this month” is the consistent assignment rate calculated from the tracking and trending
    report.
66. Replace [State] with your state.
67. The state and national averages can be obtained from the Advancing Excellence in America’s Nursing
    Homes website, http://www.nhqualitycampaign.org/star_index.aspx?controls=states_map.
    8
68. Change the “Unit/Hall” categories to reflect your facility.
69. Enter the percentage rates for each unit/hall that you are tracking. Leave the other unit/halls blank.
70. Enter the data from the previous three months.
71. Discuss this data