The care and services provided by Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly [RCFEs] have significantly changed over the past several years.  RCFEs provide services and supports to a wide range of residents:  some residents who are very independent and other residents who need assistance with the activities of daily living, are living with a diagnosis of dementia, or may be receiving home health care and/or hospice services.

Accordingly, RCFE providers have had the responsibility to understand and operationalize increasingly complex requirements.  The Department of Social Services, Community Care Licensing Division has also experience significant change.  Requirements to conduct inspections at least once every 5 years, and persistent budget cuts resulted in a more streamlined inspection process.

In 2016, the legislature and new Division leadership resulted in an initiative to develop a more comprehensive inspection process, draft inspection tools, identify requirement domains and pilot this new process.  At the time of this writing, the outcome of the pilot is not yet known. Regardless of the final design of the inspection process, it is important that licensees and administrators have an opportunity to Review statutory and regulatory requirements, Refresh their understanding of these requirements in the context of their own facility operations, and Reset those operational areas that may not meet the requirements.

Sept. 27 Session:

Hour 1: New Approaches to inspections [domains, inspection tools, specialty tools, facility checklist, entrance conference worksheet, etc.]

Hour 2: Overview of operational requirements/associated specialty tool