An Integral View
Welcome to the first entry of the Laguna Honda blog.
This is a space for conversations about long term care that we hope will educate, inform and enlighten.
As we undergo an organizational culture change coinciding with our transition into a new 780-person facility serving seniors and adults with disabilities, we hope to engage the on-line healthcare community in the questions that are driving our own development:
- How to encourage independence and community integration for people who live in skilled nursing facilities.
- How to foster a healing environment by constructing both buildings and relationships that promote health and well-being.
- How to strengthen community partnerships among health care providers, advocates, regulators, educators, and researchers that add quality of life and quality of care for people who live in skilled nursing facilities.
- How to sustain best practices in skilled nursing care, organizational effectiveness and fiscal responsibility to promote innovative excellence.
Laguna Honda is an acute care hospital, a nursing facility, and a rehabilitation center.
We take a systems approach to our work. Everything is connected. We see ourselves as one part of a larger network of relationships and commitments that has at its center the well being of each person who receives our care. Our network that extends to providers, families, community based organizations, healthcare educators, and many, many others in the extended, affirming communities that make up a single life.
Facilities like ours are becoming more finely tuned to meet specific needs that cannot be served elsewhere in our communities. Only after a referring physician, a discharging hospital and an admitting program agree that a skilled nursing facility is the best possible option, do people become residents or patients at Laguna Honda.
We use the terms “resident” and “patient” somewhat interchangeably. Our patients come to Laguna Honda typically for short term rehabilitation, after which they return to other community settings. Our residents come for longer term care, and may complete their lives while they are with us. We always remember that we are guests in their home.
Like any organization or community of long standing, we have had our share of triumphs and challenges. Our goal is to continually reinvent ourselves as an organization to better serve the changing needs of the safety net population we serve.
We hope that on this blog colleagues throughout the internet will find a place to mutually contribute to one another’s pursuit of excellence.
Psychology Interns Get Top Notch Training While Providing Direct Service
One of Laguna Honda’s core values is to be a part of our community. In addition to enabling residents to connect to the community as much as possible, we also invite the community to be a part of Laguna Honda. One of the key ways we do this is through our psychology internship program.
For nearly two decades, we have drawn advanced graduate students and pre- and post-doctoral candidates from professional psychology programs throughout the Bay Area to our highly coveted internship positions. Interns follow either a neuropsychology track or a substance abuse treatment track and become an integral part of resident care teams. With staff supervision, the interns provide individual and group psychotherapy and conduct evaluations and assessments.
Nearly half of our current staff psychologists began as interns in our program, including Brenda Austin, Ph.D, who did one year of her two year post-doc training with us, and has been Co-Director of our Psychology Training Program for the last several years. Many have gone on to impressive positions in the field around the country. Among the illustrious graduates of the Laguna Honda training program is Laura Howe, PhD., J.D., currently chair of the Legislative Action Committee for the National Academy of Neuropsychology.
“The internship program provides value and benefit for all sides,” says Dr. Lorraine Killpack, Co-Director of the Psychology Training Program. “Residents benefit from direct service, interns benefit from field training at one of the only skilled nursing programs in the country to offer it, staff is invigorated by energetic students who bring the most current field knowledge, and Laguna Honda’s reputation grows as our interns go on to esteemed positions nationwide, having received top notch training at our hospital.”
Award winning restorative nursing program helps residents achieve greater independence
Our mission at Laguna Honda is to provide a compassionate, individualized approach to rehabilitation and long term care. A team of nurses, doctors, social workers and therapists consults with each resident and their loved ones to create a comprehensive plan to ensure the most positive outcome possible. One of the many options available to assist in rehabilitation is our award-winning restorative nursing program.
The daily lives of nearly 90% of residents are improved through our interdisciplinary approach to restorative care. Our goal is to enable people to achieve their highest level of independence whether they are learning to negotiate city streets with a wheelchair or relearning after a traumatic injury how to lift a glass of water and drink.
With a tailor-made program that takes into account specific needs and preferences, personal goals and likes and dislikes, each resident in the restorative program works with a specially trained staff member in any number of 11 target areas. Some may work on medication management while others concentrate on range of motion or walking. We also supply techniques for residents who have completed their therapy at Laguna Honda to continue to become more self-sufficient.
In 2007 the restorative care program was honored with a prestigious Best Practices Award by the California Hospital Association . We earned this distinguished tribute for achieving astounding success by steadily increasing the number of residents we serve, expanding the variety of programs we offer and by demonstrating greater measurable success.
The designer of our restorative therapy program, Jill Le Count, RN, says, “Our certified nursing assistants must be specialists in restorative care. It is very important to us that residents here receive hands-on therapy that helps them to thrive.”
Everyone on the restorative nursing team is excited about enhancements the new Laguna Honda will bring to their program. In addition to being a specially designed therapeutic environment, the new Laguna Honda features state-of-the-art equipment to give residents more options for restorative exercise. Also, new dining options will provide more opportunities for relearning relevant skills and the many new therapeutic gardens on campus will afford greater accessibility to the healing effects of nature and enhanced opportunities for outdoor exercise and activities.
Our restorative nursing program is just one more way that Laguna Honda values the whole person in our approach to long term care and rehabilitation.
At Laguna Honda, we’re new inside & out
At Laguna Honda, we have rebuilt from the ground up to enhance our therapeutic environment. Thanks to the Laguna Honda Foundation, we are renovating much of our landscaping as well.
Wanting to keep our business local, we approached the Department of Environmental Horticulture and Floristry at City College of San Francisco. Through this exciting community partnership, we worked with award-winning student landscape designer John Alexander, who planned and supervised the renovation of twelve garden areas on our 62 acres. Among them is the redesign of our front lawn and its iconic “LHH” topiary. The surrounding community can enjoy this huge expanse which has been beautified with native plants and drought resistant succulents.
John was integral in developing our therapeutic gardens and outdoor planters (pictured) as well as designing and planting the garden in our soaring atrium. Our therapeutic gardens contain raised beds for gardeners who use wheelchairs. Residents will help tend the gardens and assist in various green programs such as propagating new plants.
The atrium plantings feature two 4’x4’ panels with 24 pockets on each side containing a variety of plants that allow for sensory stimulation (pictured). Eventually, residents will be able to enjoy plant and flower clippings in their own rooms, bringing home the sights and smells of the outdoors.
Our community partnership with San Francisco City College has resulted in the flourishing redesign of our campus – just one more way the new LEED-certified Laguna Honda is environmentally aware and therapeutically grounded.
Our Aviary Garden
Ourdoor Planter
Exciting changes in Food Service at the new Laguna Honda
Andy Schoenwetter has worked in Food Services at Laguna Honda for 21 years and is excited for the improvements his department will bring to residents when they move in to the new hospital later this year. He and fellow workers have participated in the creation of new service delivery systems and are eager to put their re-training to work.
After nearly 30 years of bedside tray service, the new Laguna Honda will feature dining with a social touch thanks to galley kitchens and household dining rooms in each 60-person Laguna Honda neighborhood. Residents will still have many meal options, including ethnic and vegetarian food, and they’ll be able to eat in an atmosphere that has the sights, sounds and inviting aromas of a restaurant. In addition, food can now be served in courses, helping to ensure that nutrient rich soups, salads and entrees won’t be overlooked by dessert-lovers.
In the new Laguna Honda, food service staff and dietitians will be part of each neighborhood’s care team, along with nurses, physicians, social workers, activity therapists and housekeepers, helping to build rapport and create the personal touches that make a house a home. Paying attention to who likes their salad dressing on the side or prefers the white meat of the chicken is one way that food service staff members help to meet individual needs and preferences at the new Laguna Honda. Multi-lingual workers for non-English speaking residents will also add to personalized care and comfort.
Andy is most excited about the ecological impact of the new facility. With solar panels on his home and a high mpg car, Andy clearly cares about the environment. Every neighborhood galley will have juice dispensers, eliminating the use of non-recyclable plastic and aluminum serving packs which have contributed to the hospital’s 2-tons of weekly garbage. That, along with new composting and recycling systems, will greatly diminish Laguna Honda’s environmental impact. Its commitment to composting is one reason why the new Laguna Honda is the first LEED-certified hospital in California.
In his more than two decades at Laguna Honda, Andy has seen many beloved colleagues and residents come and go. He wishes they’d all had the opportunity to benefit from the new Laguna Honda, and he knows it would make them all proud.
Louise Renne: Champion of Laguna Honda
When then former San Francisco City Attorney Louise Renne filed pioneering consumer protection lawsuits against the tobacco industry in the 1990s and went on to win millions of dollars for California, San Francisco and other cities and counties, she had no idea it would lead to rebuilding Laguna Honda into a world class center for skilled nursing and rehabilitation.
In 1998, Renne approached then Mayor Willie Brown with the idea to use the tobacco money to save Laguna Honda, which was in disrepair and threatened with closure. Working with Brown, the Board of Supervisors and San Francisco Director of Health Dr. Mitch Katz, Renne got a bond measure on the 1999 ballot to use the settlement funds to defray the cost of rebuilding.
A resounding 73% of voters approved the measure and now, just over ten years later, the hospital’s 780 residents are poised to move to a spectacular new hospital modeled on the latest research into how the built environment of health care facilities can improve patient outcomes.
Renne has been a driving force all along. She is president of the Laguna Honda Foundation, which supports the hospital’s organizational development initiatives and underwrites research. The Foundation is also working on refurbishing the legendary Laguna Honda Theater, which once saw the likes of Bing Crosby, Merv Griffin, Frankie Lane, Donald O’Connor, and other hoofers and crooners of the Greatest Generation on its stage. The theater is on track to reopen by 2012.
When asked how she feels about her decade of work coming to fruition this week with the Gala Celebration and Ribbon Cutting, Renne said, “It’s the people of San Francisco who said the tobacco money should be spent on healthcare. The new Laguna Honda is a credit to them. I think this is a city that believes a strong commitment to public health is a measure of the worth of any community. And, of course, I think with Laguna Honda we’ve all hit a homerun!”
What if your mother developed Alzheimer’s?
Imagine that your mother developed Alzheimer’s.
What if caring for her at home became too difficult? Would you know where to turn? We have the answer, right here in San Francisco. The new Laguna Honda is now a state of the art skilled nursing facility designed to create community, promote self-sufficiency and let you rest assured that your mother is being cared for with compassion and dignity.
Laguna Honda has long been at the forefront of memory care. In fact our nursing staff and comprehensive approaches are featured in an upcoming educational series for care providers. Our new facility will enable us to give our residents an even greater quality of life.
Your mother would move into our new memory care neighborhood, which is divided into four 15-person households organized around a central Great Room, or town square, that will allow her to get to know and recognize her neighbors and participate in a variety of therapeutic and social activities. The neighborhood is one of 13 specialized nursing programs on our campus.
Your mother can participate in daily therapeutic activities in the Great Room, and have meals with her neighbors, further encouraging choice and social interaction. Wouldn’t you feel better knowing your mom wasn’t eating alone off a bedside tray, with no opportunity to express her own needs and preferences?
At Laguna Honda, we know that being part of a community and interacting with others slows the progress of the effects of Alzheimer’s and other dementias, like isolation and the chances of falling.
Hallways and room numbers in the memory care neighborhood are marked with designated colors to help her find her own way, so she doesn’t have to rely on others. Colorful, original works of art designed specifically for Laguna Honda serve as “way-finders” as well, while also adding beauty to the surroundings, making for a warm and livable environment. Our sunny facility is the anti-institution.
The memory care neighborhood leads onto a secured garden, helping to keep residents safe while enabling them to reap the healing effects of the natural environment on our campus.
And we’re not just taking care of residents – we’re actively fighting disease. Our Laguna Honda team is participating in the Alzheimer’s Association Memory Walk, the country’s largest event to raise awareness and funds to defeat Alzheimer’s. We are well on our way to meet our fundraising goal of $5000. We hope you’ll join the fight.
Moving a family member into a residential facility is always difficult, but often it can be the safest and wisest choice. Laguna Honda’s compassionate care is delivered round the clock, keeping your loved ones healthy and protected.
The New Laguna Honda: Choice and Community at the “Anti-Institution”
When residents move into the new Laguna Honda later this summer, they will be transported into one of the world’s most forward thinking long-term care facilities. Every detail of life was considered in the evidence-based design and operational plan to ensure the best possible outcomes for health and safety. The features included here, as well as many others, create a visually appealing home that inspires community and provides choices throughout the day.
Both wings of the new buildings lead to The Esplanade or “main street”. Starting with a sun-lit atrium that holds a lush garden and aviary, The Esplanade is lined with amenities including a community theatre, art studios for resident painters and sculptors, a multi-media library, a barber shop and a beauty salon and more - providing residents with a range of activities that support healing. Original artwork is displayed and even the handrails were artist-designed.
Care has gone into creating smaller communities, allowing residents many opportunities to socialize with familiar faces. Each floor is a distinctive neighborhood of four 15-person households that have sun-lit indoor and outdoor common areas with original artwork that not only beautifies but assists sensory stimulation and way-finding and encourages activity, interaction with nature, and activation of memory.
No longer will residents eat alone from bedside trays at a pre-determined time. Restaurant-style meals will be served in their choice of sunny dining rooms and healthy snacks and beverages are available any time in every neighborhood as well as in The Esplanade.
In addition, residents have many options for keeping active. There are paths for walking and rolling, therapeutic gardens, a fully equipped gym and two indoor pools for rehabilitative therapy.
The new Lagunda Honda puts San Francisco on the map as an innovative leader in long term care and rehabilitation.
The new Laguna Honda is proud to be the first green-certified hospital in California
Long term planning for sustainability and efficiency went into the design, construction and operation of the new Laguna Honda and it’s paying off already. We’re on target to meet stringent environmental standards set by the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Program to become California’s first green-certified hospital.
Concentrating on areas such as water conservation, air quality and energy reduction, some of the highlights of our greening are:
• We will use 30% less energy than statutory requirements, saving over $7 million over our next ten years;
• Our energy efficient air conditioning systems reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reuse water;
• Each resident’s room has its own large operable window to regulate air temperature without raising energy consumption;
• 75% of construction waste from the demolition of existing buildings was recycled and used on site; new building materials with a high recycle content and low hazardous polyvinyl chlorides (PVCs) were used throughout;
• Our maintenance and operations workers use alternative fuel and electric vehicles throughout our 62 acre campus;
• Each of our kitchens is equipped to compost rather than contribute to waste;
• 10 new therapeutic gardens and a meadow significantly increased our landscaped public space
“We’re proud to be the first LEED Certified green hospital in California and to showcase Laguna Honda’s leadership in creating healthier communities,” said Larry Funk, the hospital’s Associate Administrator. “The green element is part of our comprehensive evidence-based design and operation approach that will make the new Laguna Honda one of the safest and highest quality hospitals ever built.”
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Recent Posts
- Psychology Interns Get Top Notch Training While Providing Direct Service
- Award winning restorative nursing program helps residents achieve greater independence
- At Laguna Honda, we’re new inside & out
- Exciting changes in Food Service at the new Laguna Honda
- Louise Renne: Champion of Laguna Honda
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