by Heather D’Adamo, MD

Folks, it’s that great time of year again – time to register for the CALTCM 43rd Annual Meeting, Quality Through Best Practices, the California Long Term Care event of the year.  This meeting just keeps getting better and better and this year is no different.

Don’t Miss This!  We are kicking it off with our Best Practices Summit Pre-conference QAPI in Action, which was a big hit last year. This year, we have incorporated your feedback and made it even better.  For example, you’ll hear about all 5 projects, instead of just 3. 

Bring your team. You can warm up your own QAPI chops with presentations on resources and strategies for quality improvement. And then, like last year, you and your team will be able to work on your own quality improvement projects with the help of our QI mentors, so you too can make improvements and maybe bring your project to present next year.  Our best presenters will even go home with an Award, courtesy of HSAG and SCAN Health Plan. The Best Practices Summit’s 4.75 CME are virtually free (you just pay a small fee for lunch).

Best Practices Summit Presentations:

• A Better Life Without Anti-Psychotic Medication; Presented by: Hugo Gozos RN, BSN
• Antibiotic Stewardship – Results-Oriented Protocol 2.0; Presented by: Peter P. Patterson, MD, MBA, FCAP, FACMQ
• Falling Star Program; Presented by: Ma. Teresa Caipang, RN, BSN
• Liberalization of Therapeutic Diets in Long Term Care: Effects on Health, Efficiency, Cost and the Quality of Life; Presented by: John Pizzo, RD
• Thanks for the Memories; Presented by: Angelo Vargara 

It’s a Full Agenda for Two days

Aside from the pre-conference, we have three more sessions for you and your team to enjoy.  The main focus of this years’ meeting is Quality Through Best practices, with a special afternoon on Just Culture and Safety.

The 43rd Annual Meeting features three half-day sessions:

• Friday Afternoon: “Management of Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome and Obesity”, which focuses on the growing concern of managing younger diabetics and obesity in the LTC setting
• Saturday Morning: “Managing Pain and Depression”, a deep-dive into these difficult-to-manage syndromes
• Saturday Afternoon: “Just Culture and Patient Safety” which promises to explore the culture of safety, with topics and cases related to safe practices.

And join us for the Readmission Roundtables lunch on Saturday, for CME and nourishment while we grapple with this important topic over lunch. 

This is fun team building!  And as with everything we do, the approaches are focused on interdisciplinary teamwork.  So, this is a great learning experience for everyone, but it’s also great for team building.

Why do we love this meeting?  Long Term Care is hard. You need a well-informed team that works well together.  CALTCM is your partner towards great quality improvement and the Annual Meeting is a great opportunity to get up-to-date info, build a great team, get some CME, enrich your network and get your QAPI projects kick-started.