GORE BAY—The Manitoulin Lodge Nursing Home has received a three-year accreditation award from the Commission on Accreditation for Rehabilitation Facilities International (CARF).
“We’re very excited about having received this accreditation award,” said Lodge administrator Debbie Wright last Friday. “We are also the first facility in the Jarlette Corporation to have been presented this recognition.”
Accreditation is a process that demonstrates a provider has met standards for the quality of its services. CARF International establishes these standards to guide providers in offering their services and also uses the standards to evaluate how well a provider is serving people and how it can improve.
Ms. Wright explained that “CARF International provided us with a manual of their standards and those standards of the Long Term Care Act. The surveyors came in and reviewed all of our policies and our processes to meet these policies to ensure the Lodge was compliant to the CARF standards.”
“They hold proper meetings and we have to show proof if things are brought up at a meeting that we are or have taken steps to deal with these issues,”said Ms. Wright. “This includes issues like health and safety, diet, accommodations and the like.”
As a step toward accreditation a provider invites CARF International to send a team of professionals, called surveyors, to visit its site and evaluate its services for quality. The surveyors consult with staff members and interview people who use the provider’s services. Based on the surveyors’ review the provider may be awarded accreditation for a term of one or three years from CARF accreditation. In some cases the provider may need to improve its services before it can become accredited.
The accreditation, “is quite a process, it is carried out over two days, with two inspectors from CARF on hand, with one reading the policies and the other marking down if they have been carried out properly,” said Ms. Wright. “They hold interviews with members of staff, family members, family council, residents and any of our vendors who provide care, such as physiotherapists and dieticians.”
The accreditation process was actually initiated this past June, with CARF holding weekly teleconferences with all Lodge departments. “We were very excited that when they give a list of recommendations that we need to address to get the accreditation. They have over 1,000 standards that need to be met and we only had 74 recommendations, with 15 in relation to one topic and another with 12. So when we get these recommendations we develop a plan to alleviate the concerns or problems.”
“The Lodge has always received the three-year accreditation award from the Canadian (accreditation) organization, but Jarlette Health Services always wants their facilities to be one step ahead,” said Ms. Wright. She pointed out with the CARF accreditation, for each of the three years, “we have to send in a report showing that we are still meeting and in compliance with the CARF standards.”
“We are really, really excited with this accreditation award and it makes you realize how much work we all do here and proves we are on the right track with what we are doing,” continued Ms. Wright.
“We are very proud of all the hard work our staff, the families, and family council does on a daily basis to make this the best place we can for our residents to live in,” added Ms. Wright.
The inscription on the plaque Manitoulin Lodge received states, “CARF International: a three-year accreditation is awarded to Manitoulin Lodge Long Term Care for the following program: Person Centred Long Term Care Community. This accreditation is valid through October, 2016. The accreditation seals in place below signify that the organization has met annual conformance requirements for quality standards that enhance the lives of persons served.”
