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Innov Aging
Innov Aging
innovateage
Innovation in Aging
2399-5300 Oxford University Press US 

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.2744
igaa057.2744
Abstracts
Session 7075 (Symposium)
AcademicSubjects/SOC02600
Regional Workshops to Widely Disseminate an Innovative Practice
Hain Debra  Suriaga Armiel  
Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida, United States
2020 
16 12 2020 
16 12 2020 
4 Suppl 1 Program Abstracts from The GSA 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting “Turning 75: Why Age Matters”760 761
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America.2020This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Abstract
The second stage of the CMS Region IV project involved a series of 20 half-day workshops and five follow-up webinars to introduce Go to the Hospital or Stay Here?, the training resources available (12 videos, 5 case studies and Best Practices summary), and strategies for implementation. Altogether 1124 representatives from long-term care facilities, state agencies, ombudsman groups and hospitals attended these interactive workshops. Polled participants reported that resident and family insistence on transfer to the hospital was a major barrier to successful reduction of acute care transfers for them. Those who implemented the Guide facility-wide reported an average 28% reduction in transfers. Primary barriers to facility-wide implementation were lack of leadership, making a choice to absorb the cost of financial penalties and failure to distinguish the goal of Guide use from those of existing transfer reduction programs. The facilities found the workshops helpful preparation for effective implementation of the Guide.