1.Please join us at our next important statewide meeting on January 21, 2012 at the law offices of Chalgian & Tripp in East Lansing, 1019 Trowbridge Road (near the Trowbridge exit for I-496 and Route 127) and mark your calendars for our March 17^th meeting at the same time and place. If you plan to attend, please RSVP to Brittany Koziol at miqualitycare@yahoo.com or 616-570-2065.  

2. The Campaign seeks nominations for  the Board. Are you interested in playing a vital role in the Campaign? Join us for the Board’s General Election on January 21!  -- It’s time for our bi-annual Board election! Longtime Campaign Board member Toni Wilson has stepped down from the board due to other commitments.  We thank Toni for her enormous commitment to the Campaign over many years.   At the January 21 Campaign statewide meeting, we will be electing members both to fill Toni’s vacant seat and the five other Board positions (see below).  Board members help establish priorities for the Board to pursue, make decisions regarding fundraising and expenditures, approve Campaign advocacy efforts, and take responsibility for various Campaign activities.  We encourage all members to consider stepping up to play this critical role in the Campaign and to ensure the continued vitality of the Campaign.  If you are interested in serving on the Board in any position or want to nominate someone else, please contact Campaign secretary Carole Newburry at cjnewb@att.net or call 269-353-6445.      

       Current board members will seek re-election.  They are: President Bill Mania (Southfield), Vice-President Brittany Koziol (Grand Rapids), Secretary Carole Newburry (Kalamazoo), Treasurer Paul Van Westrienen (Parchment), and Advisor John Weir (Kalamazoo). 

3. Detroit Free Press presents superb three day series on Michigan nursing homes— On December 12-14, the Detroit Free Press ran an extraordinary, well-researched and in-depth series of articles about Michigan nursing homes entitled, “Trust and Neglect”.  The series, which was featured on the front page for each of the three days and continued with extensive coverage inside the paper, included stories on dangerous lapses in care and neglect of residents, spotlights on troubled homes, and an examination of what high quality homes have in common and what to look for when selecting a facility.  Several Campaign members as well as a number of other experts on nursing home care participated in extensive interviews over many months for the story and were quoted in the series.  The Free Press has also prepared a web-based interactive map of the state that shows the name, location, and federal 5 star rating for each Michigan facility and a nursing home database with comprehensive information on each of Michigan’s 427 nursing homes.  Go to www.freep.com/nursinghomes for the complete series of stories, the interactive map, and the database on Michigan nursing homes.  The Campaign congratulates and thanks the Detroit Free Press for its superb effort in providing critical and reliable information to Michigan long term care consumers and their families and for shining a light on both high quality and troubled facilities across the state.

4.  Campaign on the move!—Did you know that just this fall, the Campaign has provided testimony in the state legislature on the MI Choice Program and the state’s plan to provide integrated care to people eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare, worked with state and national media, met with state and federal officials, signed on to national advocacy efforts to improve quality of care, worked with other advocates on a variety of projects to assist long term care consumers, provided training to advocates, and served as presenters and moderators at the National Consumer Voice conference?

5 .New study find lower quality care in for profit nursing homes— A new  University of California-San Francisco (UCSF) study of the top ten nursing home chains in the country—which account for about 13% of all nursing homes—found that they offer significantly lower staffing and quality care than facilities run by not for profit organizations or government agencies.  “[W]e found that the most serious problems occur in the largest for-profit chains,” said the study’s primary author, Charlene Harrington, RN, PhD, a UCSF professor emeritus of sociology and nursing in an interview with a UCSF publication.  She added, “The top 10 chains have a strategy of keeping labor costs low to increase profits….They are not making quality a priority.”  The study asserts that adequate staffing is a key indicator of quality care.  Between 2003 and 2008, these companies had the sickest residents, but their total nursing hours were 30 percent lower than non-profit and government nursing homes. Not surprisingly, the chains were cited by nursing home inspectors for 36 percent more deficiencies and 41 percent more serious deficiencies than the best facilities. Deficiencies include failure to prevent pressure sores, weight loss, falls, infections, and resident mistreatment.

6. Studies Find Michigan Lags Behind Other States in Providing Home and Community Based Care-- According to the Kaiser Family Foundation State Health Facts (based on a 2011 report issued by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services), in FY 2009, Michigan spent almost two thirds of its long term care budget on nursing homes as compared to home and community based care, a higher percentage than any other state.  And according to the 2011 State Long Term Services and Supports Scorecard, a study released in September by the Commonwealth Fund, AARP, and the Scan Foundation to help states improve the performance of their long term care systems, in 2009, Michigan ranked 41^st in the country for the percent of its long term care spending allocated to home and community based care.  The studies demonstrate that Michigan still has a very long journey to balance its long term care system, meet the needs and overwhelming preferences of its long term care consumers, and climb its way up from the bottom of the country in the choice it provides to people who need long term care.

7.  Michigan Senate passes package of elder abuse bills – In November, 18 bills designed to prevent abuse of vulnerable elders or strengthen existing elder abuse laws and penalties passed the Michigan Senate with strong bipartisan support.  The Campaign thanks Sen. Tonya Schuitmaker (R-Kalamazoo) who spearheaded the longstanding effort to usher the bills through the Senate.  The bills now must pass the House and be signed by Governor Snyder before they can take effect.  The bills address a wide array of issues including:

*        creating stricter penalties and sentencing guidelines for financial abuse

*        creating a “Senior Alert” notification system when an older person is missing

*        requiring financial institutions to provide written information about joint account holders’ rights and training bank employees on financial exploitation

*        permitting counties to create elder death review teams

*        increasing protection for people who have been adjudicated incapacitated to protect them from unscrupulous guardians

*        protecting nursing home employees who report abuse from retaliation

*        establishing a state model for coordinated investigation by appropriate agencies of vulnerable adult abuse

*        protecting against abuses in the sale of insurance

Area agencies on aging and other advocates are contacting their State Representatives to urge swift passage of these bills in the House.

8.Federal government requires nursing home employees to report reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed in a facility to law enforcement and the state agency that regulates nursing homes—The Elder Justice Act, which passed as part of the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requires nursing facility owners, managers, employees and contractors to report all reasonable suspicions of crime committed against a resident to local law enforcement officials and the state agency that regulates nursing homes.  The provision applies to all nursing homes that receive at least $10,000 a year in federal funding.  The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid recently issued guidance to states how to implement and enforce the law.  If the potential crime involves serious bodily harm, the report must be made within two hours.  If not, the report must be made within 24 hours of when the individual realizes that a crime may have been committed.  Sanctions can be imposed against individuals who fail to report and facilities that retaliate against an employee who makes a report.

THE CAMPAIGN WILL BE SELLING RAFFLE TICKETS TO SUPPORT OUR WORK FROM JANUARY 21-MAY 19.  THE DRAWING WILL BE HELD AT OUR MAY 19 MEETING.  YOU DO NOT NEED TO BE PRESENT TO WIN. TICKETS ARE $20.  THE FIRST PRIZE WINNER WILL RECEIVE $500 AND THE SECOND PRIZE WINNER WILL RECEIVE $250.  IF YOU WISH TO PURCHASE A TICKET, PLEASE CONTACT BOARD MEMBER JOHN WEIR AT 269-373-5157.

PLEASE KEEP THOSE DONATIONS COMING!—  The Campaign thanks recent donors, Monika Jackson, J Herbert Cox, Carole Newburry, Paul Van Westrienen, Toni Wilson, Girts Lorencis, Irving Ray, Elaine Weingarden, Dennis Cavanaugh, Chaligian and Tripp and Lucille Milton.  Tax-deductible contributions can be sent to Paul Van Westrienen, Treasurer, Michigan Campaign for Quality Care, 359 Park Ave., Parchment, MI 49004.