3/16/2022 2:11:18 PM
During these cold winter months, the Minnesota Veterans Homes have enjoyed a bright spot in the form of recognition for the high-quality care provided to Residents.
All four of the Veterans Homes’ skilled nursing facilities received the Pinnacle Quality Insight 2022 Customer Experience Award. The Homes are located in Fergus Falls, Luverne, Minneapolis and Silver Bay.
Over the past year, Pinnacle interviewed both Residents and their families on several areas including:
Every month, the Veterans Homes’ leadership team reviewed these real-time survey results to gain a better understanding of Residents’ needs and made improvements when necessary. Everyone missed the recreational activities historically offered at each Home. With the effects of the pandemic decreasing, the Homes have begun increasing the number of activities for Residents. For example, at the Silver Bay Home, Residents are again enjoying group activities such as casino and keno days and traveling on the facility bus to see Lake Superior, local towns and schools and just seeing life return to normal.
By qualifying for the Pinnacle Customer Experience Award, the Minnesota Veterans Homes have satisfied the rigorous demand of scoring in the top 15% of the nation across a 12-month average. The Pinnacle survey results are compared to others in the industry and the Minnesota Veterans Homes have been identified as “best in class.”
“The Minnesota Veterans Homes have always placed a strong emphasis on ensuring that the individual needs of every Resident are met. The Pinnacle survey results represent the overall quality our Homes provide to Residents by our staff,” said Douglas Hughes, MDVA Deputy Commissioner - Veterans Healthcare. “I am very proud of the level of care that our staff provide and appreciate all they do to provide such a great experience for our Residents and families.”
In addition to the Pinnacle award, the Minneapolis Veterans Home was recognized by Newsweek Magazine as one of America’s Best Nursing Homes and among the top eight nursing homes in Minnesota for 2022. This annual ranking identifies the nation’s top nursing homes based on three critical criteria relative to in-state competition:
The Adult Day Center located on the Minneapolis Veterans Home campus received a Stars Among Us Excellence in Practice Award from Leading Age Minnesota for providing virtual and home-based activities when the on-site Adult Day program was temporarily closed early in the COVID-19 pandemic. The staff was very creative as they continued to serve some 40 clients with drive-by food and fun or packages of information and activities delivered to clients’ homes.
In addition to these outstanding awards, the HomeGrown farm-to-table program at the Domiciliary Program in Hastings was selected to present at LeadingAge MN’s 2022 Institute & Expo in February. The call for presentations is a competitive process and only about half of the more than 120 proposals that were submitted for consideration were selected. The selected presentations were chosen because they featured initiatives with an advanced level of programming along with interactive, creative shared-learning approaches.
The HomeGrown presentation focused on small scale farm-to-table practices that can be replicated at other locations; cost-effective methods to engage Residents with therapeutic gardening and understanding how growing produce positively impacts Resident’s quality of life, the environment, and the broader community.
Presenters included Mike Anderson, DOMs Administrator; Jamie Adler, DOMs Senior Rehabilitation Counselor, Bekki Kammeyer, DOMs Nutrition Services Supervisor, Ryan Schwarz, DOMs Dietitian and Caroline McFadden, Sustainability Coordinator.
For more information on the Minnesota Veterans Homes, visit our website.
