A public meeting will be held Thursday at Franciscan Skemp Medical Center to talk about the needs of residents in long-term care facilities. Rislow said nursing home staffs want input from residents, their families and the community.

At the meeting, people will see the film “Almost Home,” which was shown Feb. 21 on Wisconsin Public Television. The film documents the shift from a more traditional approach to a family/home philosophy.

Bethany Homes’ Hearten Houses for residents with Alzheimer’s disease have used the family/home approach since the start, and Bethany-Riverside is starting to adopt some of same approaches, Rislow said. Other facilities, such as Hillview and Lakeview Health Center, are changing their approaches, he said.

“The last few years, we have started to see this cultural change, and we need to look at what we can do to honor residents’ choices,” Rislow said.

“It’s something we should have been doing all along, and many facilities have been doing things without calling it person-directed care,” said Plachecki, a member of the Wisconsin Coalition for Person-Directed Care.

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A newly-formed Coulee Region Long Term Workforce Coalition will look at family/home approaches in its staff training, said Andrea Hansen, program manager of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Gerontology Certificate Program. The coalition, which was formed in November, also has a goal to work on retention, recognition and recruitment of long-term care workers.