And the 2016 OPTIMA Award winner is…

Understanding a resident's life history can take on a very different importance when the resident is a veteran, both in terms of how behaviors and triggers are interpreted and how caregivers are trained to react and tailor the care they deliver.

An external panel of five industry expert judges has chosen the Texas State Veterans Homes as the 2016 OPTIMA Award winner for its groundbreaking program examining the relationship of military post-traumatic stress to behaviors and dementia and its development of a training program for caregivers. The Texas State Veterans Homes, headquartered in Austin, Texas, used a cross-team approach to create resident assessments and caregiver training materials relating to trauma and has implemented the program at all eight of its facilities across the state.

“In addition to serving many WWII veterans and Korean Conflict veterans, very soon our long-term care facilities will be serving an influx of Vietnam veterans, which has the highest military trauma, post-traumatic stress diagnoses, moral injuries, triggers and behavioral issues of all military veteran groups,” wrote Kathy Johanns, program administrator, in the group’s OPTIMA Award submission.

Stay tuned for our upcoming in-depth coverage of this program, including a two-day site visit to one of its Texas facilities to see the program in action!


Topics: Executive Leadership , Leadership