You know, you’re going to get in the mail if you have a loved one in a long-term care facility, a notice. Sometimes they call you and say, “We’re going to have a care team meeting and would you like to come?”
Your answer should be, “Yes, definitely.” Because what they do is they call it an interdisciplinary care team meeting and that’s where the nutritionist and the physical therapy and the occupational therapy and all of the allied health field professionals that are taking care of your loved one get together and try and determine what are their goals, what are your problems, what problems does the resident have and what interventions or approaches can they take to solve them, and you should be there to make sure that all of your loved one’s problems are addressed.
Lots of times they read the chart quickly. They don’t really know your loved one’s problems and many times they won’t care plan for a fall risk or they won’t care plan that they might be wanderers or they won’t care plan for watching out for cellulitis, or making sure his blood sugar is taken.
Now it’s not because maybe they’re evil or understaffed or don’t have any money. It might be that they just overlooked it. So if you’re there, you can give them input as to what your loved one’s problems are. Then it’s their job based upon their professional experience to come up with goals, like your loved one will not develop any pressure sores, or your loved one will not have any blood sugar swings or whatever. And they’ll adopt interventions to make sure that that supposedly doesn’t happen.
So go to your care plan meeting. Make sure that your loved one’s problems are addressed, that appropriate goals are made, and approaches are taken to achieve those goals.
