Author: Beth Case

Epworth Villa has been named a Telligen QI Connect™ Community Quality Champion! Recipients of this inaugural Telligen QI Connect™ award.

Telligen is pleased to present this award in recognition of outstanding activation by organizations located in your home community who have utilized relationships to recruit individuals and partner organizations to join together to focus on the most challenging issues facing us all today in this time of COVID-19 and beyond: opioid misuse, increasing access to behavioral health services, ensuring smooth patient transitions with changes in level of care, patient safety, chronic disease prevention, and self-care, and nursing home quality.

We want our teammates who work so hard to care for others to feel acknowledged and recognized for their efforts and have a renewed energy in these trying pandemic times. We know our team is passionate about their work. We honor them for making a meaningful impact on the quality of life for our family, friends, and loved ones.

Weather you live at Epworth Villa or anywhere in our service area, our goal is to deliver high-quality, personalized care in the warmth and comfort of your own home. Doing better than anyone else is what we are all about.

We offer Private Duty– In-home help when you need it. We also provide Home Health – Skilled care in the comfort of your home. Hospice – Care for a loved one of any age that is nearing their end-of-life.

A testimony from Rev. Dan Frisby-

In every age, stage and page of life our greatest human need is to find hope, healing and health when life becomes most challenging, chaotic or critical.

As a retired United Methodist Minister in our Oklahoma United Methodist annual conference since serving as a student pastor in 1965 while attending Oklahoma City University till retiring in 2007, my goal and mission has been to assist, affirm and advance these essential needs for all who find times of greatest need when life may become most frightening, fragile or frustrating due to unexpected changes life may bring.

Such an event changed my life when my auto was totaled by a rear-end collision that left me facing serious back surgery. Hope, healing and health in every aspect of life became my greatest need! Following my successful surgery I faced the recuperation, restoration and renewal of renewed health.

I found the essentials I needed from the Epworth Home Health care team of their professional staff of nursing, therapy and nutrition who nurtured me back to health through their empathy, expertise and experienced care that I required to be restored back to health. I needed in this most fragile and frightening life experience.

It is with deep gratitude and a grateful heart that I commend the Epworth Home Health care team to and for your health if, or when, you may experience such need or care to restore, renew or recuperate.

We would like to highlight some of our talented teammates. Meet Tiffany Eustace, SLP.

Tiffany has been a speech pathologist since 2008 and has served the residents of Epworth Villa with the rehab team for the past 10 years. Tiffany says she has always worked in skilled nursing and enjoys working with the geriatric population because of the close relationship that are formed. “I enjoy working with and helping people during a hard time of their lives. I love to get to know my patients and who they are and what they have accomplished. My patients have taught me much more than I have taught them. My goal from the very beginning of my career was to always be open to learning and growing as a therapist and professional.”

To learn more about the rehab services at Epworth Villa please call 405-752-1200.

Wellness for Residents and Employees: We think that means a well-balanced approach to a healthy life challenges each of us to participate in body, mind, and spirit.

Pastor Laura Glover and Chaplain Dwight Mangnus offered a Blessing of the Hands to our Health Care Workers.  Our Chaplains at Epworth Villa are here for our Residents AND Employees!

The Blessing acknowledges the hallowed work of caring for others.  The special anointment and prayer recognize all of the ways the employee’s hands do this work. Pastor Laura Glover said, “we look forward to offering the blessing to the rest of our Epworth Villa teams to honor and bless their sacred work.”

As we slowly and safely emerge from the pandemic, we are hopeful!  We are hopeful for times of great reunion, joy, and happiness. This month we would like to highlight a few members of our Health Services leadership team and their stories. We are forever grateful for their stories and devotion to our Employees and Residents.

Meet Jennifer Cushman RN, BSN, RAC-CT, Director of Clinical Compliance. Jennifer has been in geriatric healthcare for the last 28 years. She started as a nursing assistant during high school working the night shift. Upon graduation, she attended Seminole State College and completed her associate degree in nursing and received her licensure as a registered nurse in 2001. She went on to complete her bachelor’s in nursing education at Southern Nazarene University.

She has served the last 20 years in nursing leadership roles as well as corporate consultation including Long Term Care, Skilled Nursing, Assisted Living, and Rehabilitation Hospitals. She just celebrated her first year with Epworth Villa. The COVID pandemic had just begun when Jennifer started at Epworth Villa. Here is her story:

“Right as I began at Epworth Villa, everyone was looking to me to give direction and initiate policies in this epic health crisis. A crisis that no current nurse alive has ever faced. The guidance from state and federal authorities was constantly changing. It was changing daily and sometimes even hourly. My entire career I have had constant interaction with residents, family members, and employees. Suddenly, I was displaced due to quarantines and limited visitation. It drastically changed our daily interactions with one another.

I suffered losses due to the virus. Like many others, I missed celebrations and funerals. I wept for Residents and loved ones trying to say their final goodbyes over electronic devices.  In October, I too contracted the virus from my son.  I fortunate enough to avoid hospitalization, but it has had lingering effects. In December, the virus swept through my extended family including my 74-year-old father who gave me quite a scare with how it affected him.  He has now – thankfully recovered.

In all of this, the faithfulness of God to provide wisdom, strength, and hope for each moment has astounded me. Sometimes all I could do through tears of frustration, fear, or grief was to whisper, “Jesus, help.” He always answered. He upheld me. He brought a word of encouragement or wisdom needed in that time.

I was asked to share with you my story answering the question, ‘How did you help residents and employees thrive during the pandemic? My answer will always be, I could not have helped without the grace of God. When speaking to residents, families, and employees who were terrified, or exhausted, or angry with precious time lost because of this virus, I asked our Father in heaven to give me His grace to be a peacemaker and to bring hope. This has not been an easy time for anyone.  I may not have been perfect in my efforts, but God has been faithful, even where I fall short. The verse that has stayed in my mind was Romans 8:37-39: ‘Yet in all these things, we are more than conquerors through Christ who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God.’”

As we slowly and safely emerge from the pandemic, we are hopeful!  We are hopeful for times of great reunion, joy and happiness. This month we would like to highlight a few members of our Health Services leadership team and their stories. We are forever grateful for their stories and devotion to our Residents.

Meet Michelle Brown, Director of Health Services. In 1994 while in college, she began her career in Health Care as a Mental Health Technician. In 2000, Michelle became a fully licensed Nursing Home Administrator. She has spent the past 21 years in corporate and private facilities in both rural and urban settings. Michelle made her way to Epworth Villa in 2019.

“My objective at the onset of the pandemic was to protect our Health care residents, and I took this challenge incredibly serious. The long hours worked and feelings of needing to be brave for my team was difficult. The bigger obstacle for me, personally, was being torn between what my heart felt was right and what the rules said had to be done. 

In the early stage of COVID, I was criticized for being too restrictive, and families were very vocal about their feelings and how they missed their loved ones. At the same time, I also knew that we had to be the front line of defense to protect our residents. 

My heart absolutely understood and still knows the families’, visitors’, and residents’ desire to see each other. I wanted visitation too! We all wanted the same thing. However, my license required that I follow and enforce the regulations and guidance given from CMS and the Oklahoma State Department of Health. 

Being a Long-term Care and Skilled Facility inside of a larger community has had benefits and drawbacks during the pandemic. Being inside a gated community with a guard at the gate screening people was a luxury that none of my peers had. A drawback was that many people did not fully understood that Health Services is separate from Independent Living and Assisted Living.  We are a licensed nursing home with entirely different guidelines from the rest of the community. So, the restrictions that were put in place made some Independent Living Residents sad that they could not visit their friends in higher levels of care.

I am incredibly proud to say that we have emerged better than most nursing homes and even thrived during the pandemic. We were able to stabilize staff, become far more creative with tasks and caregiving, and grow stronger and more cohesive as a team. 

As the pandemic dims and brighter days are dawning, we arise and acknowledge all the families and residents that have been gracious, understanding, and thankful during this past year.  I feel blessed to have been able to serve them here at Epworth Villa.”

April is Occupational Therapy Month. We would like to highlight some of our talented teammates. Meet Jeff Givens, COTA/L.

Meet Jeff! He has been a therapist at Epworth Villa for 10 years and a practicing therapist for 15 years. Jeff shared his thoughts on why he loves working with the geriatric population, “I can relate more to this group and find it interesting to hear about their history. For example, living through world wars, The Great Depression, or The Dust Bowl.”

Jeff expressed he receives great satisfaction witnessing patients he works with come to him with overwhelming needs and leave the rehab department ready to go home and live independently again.

If you want to know more about the rehab department at Epworth Villa you can reach us at 405-752-1200.