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Caring Communications: Partners in Caregiving

This project ran from April 1, 2002 thru January 30, 2003 and was funded by the United Hospital Fund.

This project built upon two other completed FLTC projects, one on improving staff-family relationships in nursing homes, done in concert with Cornell University, and the other on care at the end of life in nursing homes, funded by the NYS DOH. Both projects had findings underscoring the importance and value of staff-family communication. The real catalyst and inspiration for this project was the finding from the end-of-life project that staff and families had different goals and priorities about end-of-life care: Staff considered communication with families as having a far lower priority than did family members.

 

We developed a program for staff with overall goals that included:

• enriched care of the elderly by staff and family members
• increased family member satisfaction and participation in care
• decreased family frustration, and better communication among elders, staff and family members
  

The findings of this project were a high positive feedback from staff regarding the content and use of this training program. Participants noted that the “Caring Communication” program addressed many important needs for both families and staff that would help them communicate more effectively with each other.