Grants Awarded For Nursing Home Initiatives

Nursing homes in Minnesota are trying to improve the quality of life for residents with new initiatives after receiving more than $6.7 million in state grants.

Some of the initiatives include fewer infections and injuries, better sleep and depression to more meaningful activities for residents and higher employee retention.

The grants will be for a total of 38 projects in 87 communities and will benefit 28 individual nursing homes and 10 nursing home collaborative with capacity to serve more than 9,500 people.

“We want to make sure our seniors and all Minnesotans residing in nursing homes have access to the best quality care possible. This program not only helps improve nursing home quality overall, but it also gives these facilities opportunities to respond to emerging care, quality and workforce issues,” said Loren Colman, an assistant commissioner for the Minnesota Department of Human Services.

Under the Performance-based Incentive Payment Program (PIPP), nursing homes sign contracts with DHS to earn higher payments for implementing projects designed to make improvements in key areas that they identify. The funding is for the next one to two years.

Participants for this round of PIPP grants include Brainerd, Aitkin, Grand Rapids, Little Falls and Wadena.