After a month and half, INTERACT, an acronym for “interventions to reduce acute care transfer” is working well at the North Shore Care Center, said Mark Abrahamson to the hospital board at its March 20 meeting.
The program is fairly new nationwide, said Abrahamson, who is a nurse and in charge of training staff in the program. He said, “Cook County is one of the first places in Minnesota to adopt it.”
In a nutshell, INTERACT is an early warning tool designed so that anyone having contact with a nursing home patient notes even small changes in behavior or health and passes that along to a nurse on duty. The nurse will keep track of the information and build a database that can be shared with a doctor.
“INTERACT was designed by nursing home doctors who wanted to see improvements in the care nursing home residents receive,” said Abrahamson.
Everyone—from the maintenance people to dietary workers, food center staff, activities staff, nursing assistants, family members of residents— will receive this training, Mark said. Employees will record their observations on small cards and hand them in on shift breaks or at the end of their shifts.
“These people are on the front lines because they are dealing directly with the residents,” Abrahamson said.
Training involves learning the STOP AND WATCH tool. Even maintenance workers will learn to look for signs of agitation, abnormal tiredness or confusion, change in skin color or a decrease in the patient’s energy, change in mood, etc.
Even small changes can result in the resident getting sicker faster if an evaluation isn’t done. An example of that, said Abrahamson, is if a resident had a small fever or is dehydrated. Such changes might be an indication that the person was getting a urinary tract infection. “That can turn septic in just a few hours and then you have a major problem on your hands,” Abrahamson said.
Dr. Sandy Stover worked with Abrahamson and several other staff members for the last year to adapt procedures to fit the care center.
“Dr. Stover was very instrumental in helping us fit this program to our facility and we can’t forget to thank her,” said Abrahamson.
The overall goal of the program is to reduce the frequency of transfers to the acute hospital. Not only can transfers be hard on patients physically, but emotionally as well. Abrahamson said most care center patients don’t want to go to the hospital if it can be prevented, especially those suffering from memory loss. “They get confused. It’s very hard for them to leave their rooms. They oftentimes get disoriented and frightened,” he said.
Caregivers are still undergoing training, but early results are positive.
Kimber Wraalstad, hospital/care center director, said that the federal government penalizes care centers that re-admit care center patients into the hospital.
“That’s another reason to develop and implement this program,” she said.
“Even if the state and feds weren’t doing this I would want to do it because it’s a good program. Anytime you can stop an illness from becoming acute, that’s a good thing for everyone involved,” Abrahamson said.
Leave a Reply