Take Our Children to Work Day 2012: OOIE encourages tomorrow's advocates

Children are educated about the concerns of elder abuse by nurse consultant James Plastine.

On April 26, 2012, the OOIE celebrated “Take Our Children to Work Day” with a full day of activities for the children of OOIE employees.

OOIE was delighted to be a part of a strong program of events organized in partnership with the Department of Treasury. The day was designed to give children real-life experience in the workplace.

Seven children from OOIE participated in a Treasury Department-wide conference to learn about Treasury’s other offices (OOIE is in but independent of Treasury) and how we all connect.

Back at the office, the OOIE visitors were able to interact with parents and co-workers learning and understanding how OOIE assists elderly people living in long-term care facilities.

Lead by OOIE staffer Nikiah Nixon, who spearheads the office’s annual “Take Our Children To Work Day”, the children learned that giving, caring, and having compassion for others is not limited to home but also extends to one’s occupation.

Happy National Healthcare Decisions Day!

Staff Attorney Amy Brown answers questions during a presentation on the importance of Advance Care Planning.

In keeping with it’s emphasis on prevention and education, the Ombudsman visited three New Jersey nursing facilities to mark National Healthcare Decisions Day (NHDD) on April 16, 2012.

NHDD is a day dedicated to promoting advance care planning and discussing health care goals for patients and residents of long-term care facilities.

At each facility, the Ombudsman presented an educational video, Anna's Story, which depicts an elderly woman who winds up with a feeding tube, ventilator, and dialysis, who (through her voiceover) explains that she never wanted this intrusive medical treatment.

The video highlights the importance of advance care planning, most importantly having conversations with loved ones about what kinds of medical treatment residents do or do not want at the end of their lives. Information on do-not-resuscitate (DNR) and do-not-hospitalize (DNH) orders, and Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment (POLST) was distributed at these community meetings.

OOIE's ethics work has been featured recently on New Jersey Spotlight, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and McKnights Long-term Care News.


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OOIE congratulates the following facilities and organizations for their efforts to promote advance care planning as part of National Healthcare Decisions Day:
OOIE presented NHDD programs at:

• House of the Good Shepherd, Hackettstown
• Seabrook Village, Tinton Falls
• Friends Village, Woodstown

OOIE attended events on April 16, 2012 at:

• Bright View Greentree, Marlton, with Assemblyman Herb Conaway and Jerry Rothkoff (elder law attorney) and Samaritan Hospice.
• Pitman Manor, Pitman, with Victoria Dalton (attorney) and Samaritan Hospice
• Spring Oak Assisted Living of Vineland, Vineland, with South Jersey Legal Services

Other agencies that participated in NHDD:

• Masonic Home, Burlington
• NJ Veterans Memorial Home at Paramus
• Willow Creek Rehab and Care Center, Somerset

Healthcare Professionals Attend Conference on "How to Make Ethical Decisions at the Bedside”

On January 12th and 13th, 2012, OOIE hosted two conferences entitled “How to Make Ethical Decisions at the Bedside” at the Evergreens in Moorestown and Fellowship Village in Basking Ridge.  These trainings, presented by Bioethicist Helen Blank, PhD, gave participants a framework for confronting complex end-of-life ethics issues in long-term care facilities. It  included segments on current ethical theory, the state of the law, advance care planning, interactions with family members and surrogates, POLST/DNR/OOHDNR/DNI forms and their appropriate use, palliative care, and medical futility.

One of the central messages of the training was the importance of having advance care planning discussions with long-term care residents before these residents lack capacity and a crisis point is reached. Dr. Blank trained approximately 150 health care professionals, including a large number of social workers, nurses, and long-term care administrators. The feedback received has been exceedingly positive, with many participants describing it as “inspirational.”

OOIE plans to hold another round of these trainings in March/April 2012. Stay tuned to our Facebook page and OOIE's website for future updates and registration materials.

Greetings from New Jersey's Long-Term Care Ombudsman

Ombudsman McCracken with his mother.

On December 6, I celebrated my first year as New Jersey’s Ombudsman for the Institutionalized Elderly. And I must say that these last 12 months have been some of the most interesting, challenging and rewarding of my entire career in long-term care.

As a former long-term care administrator, I was familiar with the important work of the Office of the Ombudsman for the Institutionalized Elderly and the advocacy this office provides. I was also familiar with the Office’s highly successful volunteer advocate program, having worked with excellent volunteer advocates in the past.

Coming into this job, I knew less about another important role played by the Ombudsman’s office: to provide guidance to LTC residents, family members and facility staff facing challenging medical/ethical decisions – like withholding life-sustaining treatment or weighing medically futile interventions. Much of this work is accomplished by providing technical assistance to Regional Ethics Committees located throughout the state. I am pleased to report in this issue of The Beacon that we are hard at work re-energizing our Regional Ethics Committees and, just this month, we hosted two major end-of-life training sessions for REC members and others who work in the long-term care field. 

Since joining the Ombudsman’s office, I have tried to make the important work of our office more visible by: seeking out speaking engagements in a wide variety of venues from senior centers to veteran’s homes; rebranding all of the Office’s informational materials; exhibiting information about the OOIE at major conferences and conventions throughout the state; creating a dialogue with other service provider and advocacy organizations; and identifying and supporting policy and legislative initiatives at both the state and federal level that will benefit older New Jerseyans.

I hope you enjoy this inaugural issue of The Beacon. And I wish each of you a happy and healthy New Year.

- James W. McCracken

Volunteer Advocate Program Continues to Grow

Recruitment expanded in NJ southern counties

The number of volunteers assigned to nursing homes under the OOIE Volunteer Advocate Program has increased by about 20 percent in the last year, thanks to increased marketing and outreach efforts statewide and particularly in South Jersey.

The Volunteer Advocate Program helps promote the health, safety and welfare of residents age 60 and older who live in nursing homes. Advocates help protect residents’ rights and ensure quality of care by making regular visits to a local nursing home. Volunteers must complete a 32-hour training program and shadow and existing volunteer to become a Certified Volunteer Advocate.

Today,with the number of elderly people who are living in long-term care 

Anyone over the age of 21 who is interested in volunteering can email Deirdre Mraw, Program Coordinator, at Deirdre.Mraw@advocate.state.nj.us or call 609.826.5053.

facilities continuing to increase, the need for volunteers is even more critical. According to federal data, more than three-fourths of states use volunteers to support long term care ombudsman programs.

“A volunteer advocate is the voice for those who have none, and helps to make each community a better place to live for all its residents,” said New Jersey Ombudsman James W. McCracken, who – since being named Ombudsman in December 2010, has stepped up outreach efforts in support of the volunteer program.

Increasing visibility of OOIE

Ombudsman McCracken dramatically increases outreach activities 

Elizabeth Speidel, who oversees policy and legislative affairs for OOIE, and State Volunteer Advocate Program Coordinator Deirdre Mraw attend the recent NJ Municipalities Conference.

Since joining the office in December 2010, Ombudsman McCracken has worked diligently to raise the profile of the office. 

“My goal is to increase awareness of our services among residents of long-term care,” said McCracken. “People cannot access our advocacy services if they don’t know about us.” A secondary goal is to dramatically recruit new volunteers to the OOIE Volunteer Advocate Program, said McCracken.

This fall, the office unveiled a new logo and updated all of its outreach publications to reflect the Office’s goal of being a beacon of hope for residents of long-term care.  

“We want to telegraph to the elderly citizens of New Jersey that we are there for them, to provide guidance, support and advocacy when they have nowhere else to turn,” said McCracken.

Since joining the office in December 2010, McCracken has maintained an ambitious schedule of speaking events and facility visits. He maintains open lines of communication with organizations representing long-term care providers and with the state’s most active advocates for vulnerable elderly people, including AARP New Jersey, the NJ Foundation for Aging and Legal Services of New Jersey. 

In addition, under McCracken’s leadership, the OOIE has increased its presence at conferences and conventions targeting elderly New Jersey citizens and the Office has begun to utilize social media to increase awareness of the program. 

Ombudsman McCracken and staff speak frequently to families, resident/family councils, and providers on residents’ rights, quality of care, and advocacy. 

To obtain more information about OOIE outreach activities or to book a speaker, please contact Outreach Coordinator Kisha Saffron at kisha.saffron@advocate.state.nj.us or call 609.826.5073.
 

OOIE partners with other advocates, expands legislative advocacy

Weighs in on POLST, Older American’s Act

In expanding its work to protect and enhance the rights of residents in facilities that provide long-term care, the Ombudsman’s Office has been building partnerships with other state agencies and fellow advocacy organizations and conducting legislative advocacy on the state and federal levels.

Ombudsman McCracken speaks at an
AARP Long-Term Care Summit

Over the past year, the Ombudsman has met representatives of a number of divisions within the Departments of Health and Senior Services and Human Services. The Ombudsman has also met with leaders at AARP New Jersey, Disability Rights New Jersey, ARC of NJ, Legal Services of New Jersey, the Organization of Residents Associations of New Jersey, the NJ Foundation for Aging and many other important non-governmental organizations. Through these discussions, the Ombudsman has identified areas on which to focus its policy efforts and ways to partner with other advocates to create a more effective system to advocate on behalf of residents.

Below are three pieces of legislation that the Ombudsman’s Office has been monitoring.

The Older Americans Act (OAA), which is the federal law that governs this office, is funded through September 2012 but expired last year. In addition to reauthorizing the bill, there are proposals to extend the work of the Ombudsman beyond institutional settings into homes so that the increasing number of individuals who are receiving home-based services will have an advocate.

In New Jersey, we supported Physician’s Order for Life-Sustaining Treatment (S-2198), which was recently signed into law by Governor Christie. This law allows patients, through their doctors, to document their goals and desires regarding life-sustaining treatment in a doctor’s order that, unless the patient directs otherwise, must be followed in all settings.

Another state bill, A-4098, seeks to create a non-judicial surrogate decision-making process for medical treatments for patients in hospitals, nursing homes, and assisted living facilities and create a pilot project to transfer incapacitated individuals who have no one to speak on their behalf from hospitals to nursing homes. While the Ombudsman’s Office appreciates the important issues that this bill seeks to address, we have concerns with how it is currently written. We look forward to working with the sponsors of this bill.

For more information, contact staff attorney Elizabeth Speidel at elizabeth.speidel@advocate.state.nj.us or call 609.826.5025.