A nursing home is a place residents call "home." A place where someone lives and calls home should nurture the human spirit as well as meet medical needs. Culture change is a movement that seeks to create an environment for residents, which follows the residents' routines rather than those imposed by the facility; encourages appropriate assignments of staff with a team focus to make deep culture change possible; allows residents to make their own decisions; allows spontaneous activity opportunities; and encourages and allows residents to be treated as individuals. Deep culture change is an important component of the right of residents to “care and services to attain or maintain the highest practicable physical, mental and psychosocial well being;” as promised in the 1987 Nursing Home Reform Law.

Information and Guides

• Culture Change in Nursing Homes, from Consumer Voice
• Person-Centered Approaches to Dementia Care, from Kansas Advocates for Better Care

Additional Websites

Pioneer Network
A grassroots movement to transform the culture of aging in America. The movement is called culture change, the transformation of traditional institutions and practices into communities in which each person's capacities and individuality are affirmed and developed.

PEAK 2.0
PEAK (Promoting Excellent Alternatives in Kansas) started in 2002 as a recognition and education program to encourage providers in Kansas to adopt culture change.

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