Residenital Healthcare Facilities 2014 Guidelines Revision Project: Culture Change

Culture change began as a movement to change long term care from an institutional model of care toward one that is residential in scale and person-centered. The culture change movement began promoting programs in an effort to deinstitutionalize long term care and is rapidly being adopted into every level of the continuum of care. The continuum of care includes independent living settings, adult day (health) care, assisted living facilities, nursing homes, and hospice settings. Over the past two decades state regulators, advocacy groups, and providers have introduced the concepts of culture change into the continuum of care—including but not limited to The Eden Alternative®, Wellspring™, Planetree©, The Green House Project®, and other types of small house, household, and neighborhood models.

It is critical to understand that culture change is driven by organizational philosophy that reevaluates roles of all staff, a resident-centered care model approach, and operational functions, focusing on positive outcomes of residents vs. simply changing the physical setting. The designed environment supports the organization, resident, staff, and operations to allow for positive culture change to occur.