JHF Showcases Teaching Nursing Home Collaborative at National Conference

Maureen Saxon-Gioia, left, and Dr. JoAnne Reifsnyder with their presentation poster on current long-term care initiatives to grow the workforce.

JHF Nurse Project Manager Maureen Saxon-Gioia, MS HSA, BSN, RN, shared about the exciting progress being made by the Teaching Nursing Home Collaborative initiative at the annual AMDA – The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine conference held March 9–11 in San Antonio, TX. Saxon-Gioia presented a poster titled "Building the PALTC (PA Long-Term Care) Workforce: Pennsylvania Teaching Nursing Home Demonstration," along with Teaching Nursing Home Collaborative partner JoAnne Reifsnyder, PhD, MSN, MBA, RN, FAAN, professor, Nursing Leadership and Management Department of Organizational Systems and Adult Health at the University of Maryland School of Nursing.

The poster showcased the collaborative efforts between nursing homes and schools of nursing to address workforce challenges and improve care quality. Featuring data gleaned from the Phase I pilot, it highlighted the initiative's success in integrating Age-Friendly Health Systems and fostering academic–practice partnerships and demonstrates a promising approach to enhancing nursing education and advancing geriatric expertise. Innovative programs such as TNHC are needed to effectively address workforce challenges, enhance nursing home care, and support nursing education in NHs. Phase I demonstrated a promising path and immediately actionable approaches to improved care quality. Phase II aims to demonstrate that the model is scalable across PA and replicable in other states.

Nancy Zionts, MBA, the Foundation's COO & Chief Program Officer, also recently authored an article about the Collaborative for the March 2024 edition of AMDA's 'Caring for the Ages' publication. In her piece, Zionts lays out ways that leaders in nursing homes can engage with the Collaborative to address workforce and quality of care issues. The full story can be read here.

AMDA represents more than 50,000 medical directors, physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and other practitioners working in post-acute and long-term care settings, such as skilled nursing facilities, long-term care and assisted living communities, CCRCs, home care, hospice, and PACE programs.