The Answer to Quality in Nursing Homes: Culture Change
By: Christine Mueller
Handout – Nursing Homes Culture Change 3.20.14
“Culture change” is the common name given to the national movement for the transformation of older adult services, based on person-directed values and practices where the voices of elders and those working with them are considered and respected. Core person-directed values are choice, dignity, respect, self-determination and purposeful living.
This presentation will provide a comprehensive overview of nursing home culture change and address these questions:
- Why do we call it culture change?
- How did it get started? What is it? Who is doing it?
- What does it really look like?
- Are there resources?
The ultimate question to be addressed is why culture change is the answer to quality in nursing homes.
Christine Mueller, PhD, RN, FGSA, FAAN
Christine is a professor and Associate Dean of Academic Programs at the University of Minnesota, School of Nursing and holds the School of Nursing Long-term Care Professorship.
Her research career has focused on improving the care of elders living in nursing homes and her research focuses on factors that can influence quality of nursing home care such as nurse staffing, care delivery systems, and the role of the nurse and nursing home culture change. She has provided national leadership on teaching geriatric nursing, with a particular emphasis on using the nursing home setting as a clinical learning laboratory for teaching geriatric nursing.