The Pinnacle of Culture Change | ChangingAging.org

by Peg LaPort
UPDATE: Please continue this conversation on the newly-created LinkedIn Changing Aging Network.
Now that the snail mail has delivered hard copies of this month’s outstanding issue of Provider Magazine, I’d like to revisit highlights of the cover story: “Culture Change Goes Main Stream.”

• In 2005, nearly three-quarters of health care opinion leaders surveyed by the Commonwealth Fund were unfamiliar with the concept of “culture change,” despite nearly 20 years of advocacy within the movement.
• Three years later in 2008, 66 percent of respondents reported they were familiar with the culture change movement — a dramatic turnaround.
• A 2007 National Survey of Nursing Homes reported one-third of nursing homes had adopted some culture change practices and another one-third were planning to follow suit.

What’s driving the change in attitudes? Certainly, decades of work by advocates in the culture change movement pushing for more person-centered approaches to long term care, such as Dr. Bill’s Eden Alternative philosophy and Green House Project, labeled by Provider as the “peak” of the culture change movement. As of this year, 79 Green House homes have opened in 14 states, and another 132 homes are either in development or under construction in another 12 states.
But the biggest indicator of a sea-change in attitudes towards culture is the conversion of big for-profit facilities:
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