by Flora Y. Bessey Pharm.D., CGP

Sundays in our household are all about football.  Until, of course, a call comes in from a nursing facility saying: “We are out of Vicodin on a post op patient and the pharmacy can’t give us permission to use the emergency supply because they don’t have a valid order!  Flora, you have to help us!”

So I put the TV on mute and jump on the phone, first to the pharmacy to see exactly what is going on. "Physician has not replied to our fax request for authorization for a refill.  We sent it on Friday anticipating the patient would run out over the weekend.  Well, here it is Sunday and the patient is out of medication!"

In September, California Association of Health Facilities (CAHF) Quality Care Health Foundation presented the annual Quality Symposium, one in Pomona and the other in Berkeley, entitled “Turning Adverse Events into Opportunities for Quality.”  The conferences were well attended and featured a lineup of speakers including some CALTCM leaders, including Flora Brahmbhatt Bessey, Pharm.D., and Karl Steinberg, MD, CMD, who both spoke on the topic of avoidable medication errors.  

by Tim Gieseke MD, CMD

Chair Education CALTCM

One of my hospitalist friends is moving from a many year focus on Hospitalist medicine to Post-Acute and Long Term Care Medicine (PA-LTC).  This year AMDA (American Medical Directors Association) changed its name to AMDA- The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine, in recognition of the multidisciplinary approach required for optimal patient outcomes. The easy answer to my friend's question then is to go to newly minted AMDA, PA-LTC's Core Curriculum for the CMD certificate in San Diego this November. (Part of the Core Curriculum can now be done online.)(click here for more information.)  

Beginning this summer, the Small House Skilled Nursing Facility Pilot Program will create a new subcategory of skilled nursing facility (SNF) in California: the small house skilled nursing facility.  The purpose of this new pilot program, also known as SB-1228, is to allow the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) to authorize the development and operation of up to 10 small house SNFs.

Organizations accepted into the program will have access to an unprecedented, streamlined process of approval for this new model of skilled nursing care.