Christensen: Schmieding programs to continue on

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Margaret Christensen may be leaving her job as education coordinator at the Schmieding Center for Senior Education-Bella Vista, but she’s not going far. As a matter of fact, she’s moving just across the room to another offi ce.

Christensen was recently named project director for a three-year, $3.5 million Health Care Initiative Challenge Award that will be administered by the Schmieding Center for Senior Health and Education in Springdale and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. The project is beginning its second year. The programs at the Bella Vista center will continue as is said Christensen, who served the past four years as education coordinator and for the prior three years as associate education coordinator.

“We are in the process of interviewing several people to take over my position as education coordinator,” she said. However, the new job title will be program specialist, and the job will working , organizing the center’s big events — the Senior Health Fair and the Senior Services Expo — being familiar with Bella Vista and assisting in the offi ce.

The program specialist also will be coordinating several teaching programs, Christensen said. In addition to the family care advocates training under the grant program, the specialist will be coordinating an in-home assistant course, which meets the criteria of the new law coming into effect in April. The law states that if inhome caregivers are going to be paid to care for seniors in the home, they have to complete 40 hours of home care training. She expects an announcement on the hiring in the next couple of weeks.

The federal grant was from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services and was one of three awarded nationwide.

Under the grant, Christensen and her three-person team will look at demographics and socioeconomic differences in four areas in the country. It also will provide caregiver training for 2,100 home caregivers in those areas.

Part of the training is to improve communications and observation skills of the caregivers, who are not nurses but provide personal care, such as housekeeping, fixing meals and assisting with showers, to Medi- care recipients. The goal is to train 2,100 caregivers by 2015.

It is hoped the caregivers can identify some chronic diseases of those age groups, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, congestive heart conditions and diabetes, Christensen said.

“If the home caregivers can recognize them and get medical care before a hospital or emergency room care is needed, then that saves money for Medicare,” she said.

In addition, the 40-hour course, which will be available online and in a classroom setting, will teach the caregiver to communicate medical conditions to doctors, nurses and pharmacists. Under the grant program, there are tuition loans available for the training.

Christensen’s main job will be evaluating the data over the next two years and comparing the medical costs of the Medicare recipients now and after the introduction of the trained home caregivers.

“It’s kind of my thing,” she said, pointing out her doctoral dissertation dealt with criteria-based performance appraisals. She also has a nursing diploma and a master’s degree in education.

“Does it make a difference to have advanced training, and can it save money for Medicare?” Christensen said about the grant’s work. “Common sense says it should, but will it really?”

There are four demographics to eliminate bias, culture, geographic differences and socioeconomic levels.

The four areas are Arkansas, a rural state that will use its nine centers on aging; Belton, Texas, which is a highly educated area; Santa Monica, Calif.; and Honolulu, Hawaii, with a higher socioeconomic level.

The common thread will be the approximately 2,000 Medicare patients in the four areas and their caregivers.

“The program is an opportunity to do something new and different,” Christensen said. “I can put some of my education skills to use.”

News, Pages 1 on 09/11/2013