Area Agency on Aging, Age With Us

Ohio District 5 Area Agency On Aging - Episode 5 - Ombudsman Program

Bev Tatro, Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program Director, and Melissa Wilson, Volunteer Coordinator, at the Ohio District 5 Area Agency on Aging discuss the Ombudsman program. Bev and Melissa explain exactly what they do and about volunteer opportunities available locally in the region.

Duration:: 19m
Broadcast on:: 12 Aug 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

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I've been in my role as a director of the Ombudsman program for just a little over 12 years. However, I have worked in different programs with the Area Agency for 35 years. Okay. All right. Terrific. Now, you have brought somebody with you, and this is Melissa Wilson, who's right in front of me, who is the volunteer coordinator for the program. Good morning, and thank you for being here. Good morning. Thank you. All right. How long have you been in your current role? 19 years. Okay. All right. I can call you experts, right? I have to be able to, right? All right. Well, I think we begin because I know I've heard about the program, but many people may not know. They may have heard Ombudsman, and they really don't know what that is all about. Bev, can we start there? Can you explain what this program does, what you guys kind of do for people on a daily basis? Sure. Just to make it easier, Ombudsman, you know, the short explanation of what an Ombudsman is, is an advocate. So we advocate for residents in nursing homes, in assisted living facilities, and we also have a few smaller group homes that we can work with residents. And if consumers are getting their services in their home, long-term care services, then we can help them as well. And when I say help and advocate, we mean that if they've got a problem or a concern with their care, that they have not been able to rectify, you know, with maybe their own follow-up with the, you know, facility or with the home care provider, then that's when we can come in and try to help find a solution to those issues. I'm glad you brought up because someone may here advocate in how you help it. And how does it work in terms of who do you go in and exactly talk with? Could you explain that a little bit? Sure. As advocates for residents and consumers of long-term care, our consumers drive the bus, if you want to call it that way. We talk with them always first. And if they don't have capacity in some zone, of course, to really understand our role and how we can help, even be able to explain what the issues are, then if they have a appointed representative, then we take our guidance from them. But once we hear about what the issues are and explain what we can do to try to help them, then we primarily work with the administrative staff at a facility or the director of a home care agency to explain what the issues are and then try to work with them to find resolutions to the problems. You are hearing this morning from the Ohio District 5 Area Agency on Aging, as we have two guests in studio, as you just heard the voice right there, of Bev Tatro, who is the long-term care ombudsman program director. Melissa Wilson in front of me, the volunteer coordinator for the program. We're going to get to what all she does in a moment. But I want to continue next with, in the state of Ohio, in terms of the long-care ombudsman program, Bev, could you share with us a little bit more from the statewide perspective, maybe? Sure. The office of the state long-term care ombudsman is housed within the Ohio Department of Aging. And there are 12 regional programs for the ombudsman that cover all 88 counties in Ohio. Our region is region 5, and we cover the same counties that the area agency does, which is Ashlyn Crawford, Huron, Knox, Marion, Morrow, Richland, Seneca, and Wyandotte counties. We have about 50 nursing homes in that nine-county area. We have 39 assisted living facilities and just seven of the smaller group homes that we have authority in. All right, so I know you guys cover a good-size area here in North Central Ohio. We're going to turn our attention now when we mention volunteer. And so we're going to learn a little bit more about how all that works. You mentioned 19 years in the role of Melissa Wilson. Walk us through from your side coordinating volunteers and all these kind of things. So the coordination part is me recruiting, training, and managing the volunteers. So recruiting just anywhere I can find space or time or words to say to people. And then, of course, training. They go through initial training about 16 hours of classroom and then out in the field with a staff person until they get to be on their own where it's on their schedule, morning, evening, afternoon, weekends. They can visit whenever they choose. Now, when it comes to a volunteer, how does it work? You mentioned so much training and things like that. But is it once a week? Is it once a month? How does it work? Does it depend on need or how often they're available? Walk us through that. So it depends mostly on what their schedule is. So some go twice a month, some go every week, some go once a month. It just depends on what their schedule allows and what they choose to do. There are times when we say, "Hey, next time you're out," or, "Hey, is there any chance that maybe you could go out an extra time just to check on Mr. Smith and make sure he got his walker or, you know, Sally got her dentures, whatever the case might be." Now, in terms of a volunteer, is that training done in Ontario at Hawkins Corner or is it done online? How does it work? It's an in-person at Hawkins Corner. Almost every time there are rare occasions when I might do it elsewhere to be closer to the individual, but it's most of the time done at the agency. You're hearing again this morning from Melissa Wilson, who's the volunteer coordinator for the long-term ombudsman program. We're talking with the Ohio District 5 Area Agency on Aging. Their podcast on iHeartRadio, age with us. Now, in terms of training, walk us through, you know, what kind of training do they have? You gave us a couple examples, but walk us through kind of the training that they get. So they get a lot of information during the initial training for anything that could happen while they're in the home, but mostly volunteers are just visiting and helping with follow-up on cases, if they get a complaint, then they bring that back to us. The training is to kind of cover all the bases of things they might encounter when they're visiting in a particular situation. How does it work to become a volunteer? Can they go online? Can they call? Can they stop in? Yes, yes, yes. Yes, yes. All of the above. So they could stop into Hawkins Corner. And how long does the process actually take to say, hey, I want to be a volunteer before you're actually, as you would say, out in the field? So the process, there are three, usually the 16 hours of classroom time are divided up into three days and that's usually over like maybe a two-week period, usually about five hours for each of those days. And then they do three in-person visits with a staff ombudsman. So that could take another two or three weeks depending on the staff ombudsman's schedule and their schedule, the volunteer schedule. In terms of volunteers, are you always in need? Pretty much, yes. Okay. All right. Good to know. Some information in terms of a telephone number. Let's go there next. If somebody wants to be a volunteer, they know where it's at. Of course, Hawkins Corner located in Ontario on Park Avenue West, but what's a telephone number they could call? I have six, seven, two, four, seven, six, four, four, zero. All right. Say that for us one more time? Five, six, seven, two, four, seven, six, four, four, zero. All right. You're hearing from Melissa Wilson this morning. Long-term care ombudsman program. She is the volunteer coordinator. We're going to go back to the program director who is with us. Let's next talk about being in ombudsman representative. I know what you talked earlier about maybe in-home, nursing homes, working with health agencies. Talk a little bit about that. Yeah. The majority of our work is definitely within nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Anyone can call us if they have a problem. It can be the resident. It can be family member, friend. We get calls from doctors offices, hospital personnel. So anyone can call us and we will take information about the concern. And then the representative will go out to first visit the consumer, figure out if it's that person, that the consumer or a representative that they should be working with to figure out what they want us to do to address the issue. Then we start in earnest to work with the care provider to address the issue. It could be anything, Erin, from they're not getting mom up every day and getting her dressed to hygiene, care needs not being met, not getting the right diet that's ordered for them or what their preference is. A lot of times some of our concerns from residents are that, you know, I want this. This is how I want my care and the facility is doing something that fits their needs better and not the resident's needs. And so we really do try to advocate to really look at what we call person-centered care. That means let's look at what the resident wants and how can we try to make sure that, you know, if they want to get up at 9 a.m., they're getting up at 9 a.m., not 6 a.m., because it's easier for the, you know, the home. We are visiting this morning and learning about the long-term care budsman program with the Ohio District 5 area agency on aging, the program director right there hearing from her. Bev TATRO. And again, remember the Ohio District 5 representing Ashlyn Crawford, Knox, Huron, Marion, Richland, Marrel Seneca, and Windat County's Bev. I thought it was an interesting point. Somebody may, you know, have a question. They don't know, you know, call and ask, right? I would assume that I've interviewed so many people from the area agency and people say there may be different programs, I don't know if I could get this help or that help. You don't know until you ask and if they have a question in terms of your program, they got to ask, right? Absolutely. We really encourage them to do that because sometimes we can just provide information and answer questions that then doesn't really require us to open a case, go out and try to, you know, work with a consumer and the provider to solve something. They just may need some information about, well, what's normal in this situation? What can I ask for? And then we try to empower them with information to address things themselves. Like I said, anyone can call us. They can call the area agency's 800 number, which is 1-800-860-5799 and if it's in regard to a care-concerned or question about long-term care in a facility, then they should ask for an ombudsman and they'll get directed to one of us. Okay. And basically, then you'll be in contact, reach out from that point. But to get the ball rolling, they can go ahead and call the number you just gave. Absolutely. All right. Very important from the Ohio District 5 area agency on aging, again, in their region here of region 5 covering local, of course, based in Ontario, Park Avenue West and Bev Tatero, Melissa Wilson with the long-term care ombudsman program with us in studio here today. So Bev, you brought up earlier that, you know, they can reach out to a representative and I just, you know, looking, you guys have a lot of great information provided to me and I want you to continue sharing that, you know, there's resources, whether it's benefits, it's insurance, whatever it is, they reach out to you guys. You really have a lot you can provide them with. We really can. We have quite a bit of knowledge in regard to just care and services of long-term care and if it's not something that we know about or they have a question that we can't answer, then we can also refer them to other programs and agencies that might be more appropriate. Whether that's, you know, an insurance question, Medicare question, yes, some things we can answer for them and explain other things we might need to refer them to another entity that has more information, but we're happy to do that. Now I have a question. When somebody has a concern, does it have to be maybe, you know, the daughter or the son of somebody, I mean, who all can call to say, "Hey, I got a question. I got a concern. How does that work?" Anybody can call. However, as advocates for residents, that's where we start. We always have to then go right to the resident and find out, you know, what they want if they have the same concerns as those presented to us from whoever has made that referral. And the other thing is we do not move forward to address something and release the name of a consumer unless they give us specific consent to allow us to do that. If they don't want to give us consent, that's okay too, depending upon the issue, we may be able to address it just on behalf of all consumers or all residents if it's something broad enough that couldn't affect many people, like their food is cold when they get it. That's probably not just them that that's happening too, and if they say, "I don't really want you to tell them it's me that's complaining about that," we say, "Okay, that's fine. We won't, and we don't. We just make sure that it's something that we can address with the provider, and sometimes we just have to then talk with more residents in that facility and see what the scope of the concern is. Is it broad or is it narrow and then address it with the facility without using anybody's name?" There are times when the concern is so specific to that consumer that if they don't give us consent, there's not a whole lot we can do, and we explain that very clearly to them so that they understand what we can and cannot do without consent. Conversation today with the Ohio District 5 Area Agency on Aging and the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program. You're hearing again right there from Bev TATRO, who is the program director, and Melissa Wilson, who is the volunteer coordinator, is with us as well. Before I let you go, I wanted to bring this up, Bev, in terms of somebody who reaches out to you guys. I'm feeling I can answer this question, but I'll go ahead and ask it. I'm sure each specific question and you guys look into it, there's not a timeframe. I'm sure others take longer than others, right? You've got it. That's true. What I can say is that regardless of what the issue is and how we address it, we do follow up to make sure that the resolution is in place and holding before we kind of back out of the situation, but it depends on many things, but including what the issue is, what kind of cooperation we're getting from the provider of the service, and how long we feel like we need to check back in to make sure that if things are okay. Bev, Teatro, Melissa Wilson with the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program are with us today on iHeartRadio and their podcast, "Age With Us." Back to Melissa Wilson before we wrap it up. Do we miss anything that you want to share in terms of the volunteer program? Yes, we love our volunteers. Without them, we could reach so few people, they get the nice connections with individuals in their home that they visit, where we're not in each home as often as the volunteers are. They get a good connection, the residents trust to share information with them, trust that they're going to hold that in confidence as they tell them to, and then they're able to share that information with us and we can resolve situations through and with the volunteers. Depending on time of the year, does it matter? Do you need more volunteers in summer, spring, winter, fall, or not necessarily? I don't think there are seasons for when people have needs, so definitely we could use volunteers anytime of the year. Terrific, could you throw out the information again, phone number if somebody wants to volunteer? Sure. The phone number is 567-247-6440. Alright again, you're hearing there from Melissa Wilson, volunteer coordinator with the long-term care ombudsman program. Back to the program director, Bev Chachro, anything you want to leave the listeners with that we've missed this morning or just overall circle back to you one more time. Again, just to make sure people call us, that's usually the easiest, best, and quickest way to get to us and share their information and then we will go from there and follow our protocols to make sure we include the resident and try to do our best to help negotiate and find resolutions to issues. Bev, if you could, if somebody has a concern and issue what's the number that they can call? Sure. They can call 1-800-860-5799, which is the 800 number for the Area Agency on Aging at Hawkins Corner, and that's where our offices are, and ask to speak with an ombudsman. Alright. Located in Ontario on Park Avenue West, Hawkins Corner, the Ohio District 5 Area Agency on Aging covering Ashlyn Crawford, Huron Knox, Marion Morrow Richland Seneca, and Wyandotte Counties. It's been great to learn very important information about the long-term care ombudsman program with the program director Bev Chachro and the volunteer coordinator for the program, Melissa Wilson. It was great to meet both of you and learn about the program. Thanks so much for being with us today. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. It is Ryan Seacrest, there was a recent social media trend, which consisted of flying on a plane with no music, no movies, no entertainment, but a better trend would be going to Chumbakacino.com. It's like having a mini social casino in your pocket. Chumbakacino has over 100 online casino-style games, all absolutely free. It's the most fun you can have online and on a plane, so grab your free welcome bonus now at Chumbakacino.com. Sponsored by Chumbakacino, no purchase necessary, VGW Group, voidware prohibited by law, 18 plus terms and conditions apply.