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WWII Veteran and Stafford Resident Receives Congressional Medal of Honor

“I respect anyone, whoever they are, whatever country they come from. I have a great respect for people.” Those wonderful words are from Congressional Gold Medal recipient Ken Yaguchi.

Yaguchi, 89, was honored at The Stafford – a boutique retirement community that Infinity Rehab provides rehabilitation services for – on Tuesday March 13th where Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber declared Feb. 26, 2012 to be Nisei Veterans Day.

In a ceremony held at the Multnomah Athletic Club in Portland, OR, World War II veteran Ken Yaguchi, in addition to other veterans, received a Congressional Gold Medal — the highest award given in the United States from Congress — in recognition of his dedicated service during the war. A large ceremony was held previously in Washington D.C. after President Barack Obama signed the legislation to bestow the medals.

Click the below links to read more about Yaguchi’s life an achievements:

The Oregonian newspaper coverage.

Portland Tribune newspaper coverage

Lake Oswego Review newspaper coverage

The Stafford website coverage

 

Infinity Rehab Congratulates Therapy Solutions for Receiving the Gold Seal of Approval!

Infinity Rehab would like to congratulate its sister company, Therapy Solutions, for recently being awarded the Gold Seal of Approval from The Joint Commission for Health Care Staffing Services.

“This is truly a flag in our tower,” says Warren Johnson, President of Therapy Solutions. “We are very excited to have this accreditation. It’s a great tribute to the services we provide and the excellent work of our therapists.”

Therapy Solutions underwent an on-site review of its compliance with national standards that assess how staffing firms determine the qualifications and competency of their staff, how they place their staff, and how they monitor staffs’ performance.

There were numerous quality standards that needed to be met during the review process, according to Johnson. “The evaluation demanded over 100 hours of work from Therapy Solutions. We worked with The Joint Commission on auditing our records, ensuring policies and standards are in place and logging all of our data into a website that is monitored by the Commission,” recalls Johnson.

“Health care organizations that contract with Therapy Solutions can look to Joint Commission certification as an assurance that Therapy Solutions demonstrates a commitment to providing and continuously improving quality services,” says Michele Sacco, M.S., executive director, Health Care Staffing Services Certification of The Joint Commission.

Therapy Solutions received a two-year Gold Seal of Approval and will undergo an annual review process to ensure the organization has maintained and improved upon the standards and policies that have been enacted.

“This accreditation really sets us apart from other health care staffing organizations and recognizes the value of our hard work and our commitment to offer better quality services,” says Johnson.

Therapy Solutions provides therapy staff across a wide variety of settings, serving both pediatric and adult populations since 1988.

Founded in 1951, The Joint Commission seeks to continuously improve health care for the public, in collaboration with other stakeholders, by evaluating health care organizations and inspiring them to excel in providing safe and effective care of the highest quality and value.

 

 

The Dashaway Walker: The Next Step In Mobility

By Kimberly Donahue, PT, DPT

A Dashaway walker is essentially a four-wheeled-walker with upper extremity platforms to improve posture with gait. At the age of 85, a gentleman with Parkinson’s disease and spinal stenosis helped to co-develop this idea for a walker to improve his own functional mobility. The benefit of the upper extremity platforms is the ease of a neutral spinal alignment and full hip extension with gait. This helps our patients with or without Parkinson’s disease attain a more normalized gait pattern, and also decreases back and shoulder pain which some patients experience with traditional four-wheeled-walkers. Therapists also use this device for standing exercises, again for the benefits of improved posture and neutral spine alignment, optimizing strengthening through a full range of motion. Unfortunately, the Dashaway walker is not covered by Medicare at this time. However, it is a great training tool to help improve gait and posture in the geriatric population.

What are some devices you are using to improve your patient’s care results?

Holly Creek Retirement Community Featured in Denver Business Journal

This past January Christian Living Communities, an Infinity Rehab partner in Denver, Colorado, and one of its communities, Clermont Park, received some great press when they purchased an AlterG Anti-Gravity Treadmill for two of their post-acute rehab communities.  Now, another one of its retirement communities is back in the news! This time, Holly Creek Retirement Community is featured for being a leader in providing an exceptional level of care and true freedom of choice for its residents.

Below is an excerpt from the article that highlight the wonderful amenities and breadth of choice Holly Creek Retirement Community offers:

Those who operate retirement homes are competing to attract the attention of the growing number of Denver-area baby boomers – and they’re offering discounts, amenities and perks not seen 20 years ago.

“The competition is fierce. There’s a lot of new communities that have opened in the last five years,” says Cindy Hogan, executive director of strategy and research for Christian Living Communities, a Greenwood Village-based nonprofit that operates three area retirement communities, including Holly Creek. “The developers of the world who had been developing rental spaces and strip malls about seven to eight years ago got hip to what was happening with the demographics … so a lot of developers decided to go into the retirement community business”

Holly Creek, a 17-acre community in Centennial (Colorado) … offers three dining halls, allowing residents to choose everything from simple fare to New Zealand lamb chops, depending on what (the residents) would like to pay. It features 25 fitness classes a week, a putting green and a bocce layout.

The program began last October, and participants get guidelines to improve the parts of their lives that aren’t in proper balance, noted Hogan, who was Holly Creek’s director before moving to her current position with its parent company.

Masterpiece Living typifies the approach that retirement communities have to take now with residents, giving more-independent seniors freedom to design their days rather than just coming up with a few communal activities, she said.

In fact, the residents have a committee that decides issues such as building maintenance and safety.

“Our residents, they’re investors in our organization,” Hogan said.

Holly Creek, which opened in 2005, added a second phase in 2008 to cater to those who are sick, either with a chronic illness or a temporary ailment.

The Suites at Holly Creek, an assisted living facility on the same campus as the independent-living homes, offers nursing, therapy and a rehabilitation gym – including an AlterG Anti-Gravity Treadmill developed by NASA. It supports patients who are at higher risk of falling and allows them to work on walking mechanics without bearing full weight on their limbs.

Residents can move from the assisted living back to their independent-living residences once they’re well enough to do so, Hogan added.

The full article can be read by clicking on this link: http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/print-edition/2011/07/01/theyre-living-the-high-life.html

How Infinity Rehab’s Clinical Ladder Improves Patient Care

Every business is like a body: customers are the blood while the employees are the muscle. In addition, just as you would want to eat healthy to maintain proper blood pressure and workout to stay on top of your game, businesses also need to do the same. Naturally, there is a lot of emphasis on retaining a steady flow of customers. Marketing teams are hired and capital is spent on advertising and product improvement. However, sometimes it can be difficult to identify ways to keep the workforce strong and engaged, but again, just like any workout regime it is necessary to adapt to the needs of the individual – or business.

One of the many ways Infinity Rehab keeps therapists engaged and continually strengthening their skills is through the Clinical Ladder. The purpose of the Clinical Ladder is to give our Full-Time and Part-Time Occupational, Physical and Speech-Language therapists and assistants an opportunity to gain recognition and responsibility commensurate with their advanced clinical practice. As an Infinity Rehab therapist’s career advances, they can qualify for three different levels of achievement – Clinician, Clinical Specialist, Master Clinician – based on a number of factors.

The Clinical Ladder has a positive outcome in regards to patient care – all of our therapists that take part in the program are strengthening their core abilities to provide the best possible care for patients. The program is designed in such a way that the new therapy skills and knowledge each participant gain is shared with team members on a facility level. This allows for greater continuity of care and thorough treatment of the patient.

Following is a description of how all three levels of The Clinical Ladder works. Note the strong emphasis on mentorship, participation in the therapy community-at-large and the honing of skills. These three factors out of many are just a part of what make Infinity Rehab therapists so unique in both a therapy and professional setting. We continually strive to better ourselves.

Level  I – Clinician

To be eligible for Level I, the therapists must complete a six-month trial service period and have adhered to the profession’s Code of Ethics and Infinity Rehab’s Policies and Procedures. The clinician has 100% patient care responsibilities and is able to supervise volunteers and observers. The clinician must be cross-trained and knowledgeable in other areas of rehabilitation outside of their main profession and have identified at least one continuing education goal per year.

Level II – Clinical Specialist

Eligibility for Level II is based on the therapist meeting Level I requirements in addition to having two years of clinical experience in the Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF) environment, professional goals are met with 80% completion and the therapist meets productivity expectations.

The minimum expectations of a Level II Clinical Specialist include accepting to guide all levels of student internships and acting as a mentor for new staff as requested. The clinician participates in strategic planning, community education efforts and assists in documentation reviews. An additional requirement for Clinical Specialists is to attend in-service opportunities based on educational goals and then present the information to fellow staff. The final requirement to achieve Level II is to have at least two continuing education goals each year.

Level III – Master Clinician

Level III requires the therapist to have five years of SNF clinical experience and specialized board certification from organizations; like the American Occupational Therapy Association, American Physical Therapy Association and American Speech-Language Association.

A Master Clinician is expected to have 90% patient care responsibilities, utilize specialty skills in daily practice and participate in program development in their area of certification or specialization. As a leader in their field, the Master Clinician is also an active mentor in improving fellow therapists for areas of clinical expertise, provide continuing education and in-services for staff members and assist in program marketing.

The development of our career ladder has yielded positive results for our team, as measured by an industry-high retention rate, as well as continually high employee satisfaction results.  Fostering the potential of our professionals is always a good investment!

Therapy: Doing More with Less

Submitted by

Leah Wilsey, PTA, DOR

Oak Creek, Kimberly ID
Living in the world where health care ‘budget cuts’ are the norm, how can we be creative and get our patients’ needs met with less resources?  At our facility, we’ve been thinking outside the box:  those who have practiced in the therapy fields for decades  remember our therapy departments in the basements of hospitals or in the back room of a skilled nursing facility with very minimal equipment, yet still able to successfully assist our patients in their healing process.

Here at Desert View, we have really been focusing on utilizing the resident’s room as a main part of the therapy session. Not all of our patients will tolerate coming to the therapy room using free weights or the NuStep machine, but nearly all patients need to get out of bed independently.  It is a primary goal for the patient to be able to get from the bed to the restroom to the sink every day, so we focus on the basics of functional mobility as the daily skilled intervention. Once we have them strong in their daily functional needs we build on those within our facility with the items we have readily available; i.e., couches, dining room mobility, showers, van transfers, etc.
We continue with the ‘patient directed’ therapy model. Who is this individual? What did he/she do their whole life? What do they need to do to get back to their prior level of function? Once we can identify their specific abilities as well as motivation, our therapy plan will focus on their function. Gardening, laundry and housekeeping are great activities for many patients. We believe more of a hands-on approach with the patient’s specific image of recovery in mind is more helpful and engaging than ‘general exercise programs.’ General strengthening is important, but specifics will engage patients in a way that routine exercises never will.
The next few months will be challenging for all of us in the health care field as we adjust again to doing more with less.  Keeping in mind our patient’s specific goals backed up with specific, skilled documentation, we will continue to succeed at the “why” even as we modify the “how” of our care.