Dr. Bill Thomas, founder of the Eden Alternative, Green House Project and Changing Aging blog, and Dr. Judah Ronch, Dean of the Erickson School of Aging, coined the term Surplus Safety. As you can imagine, it refers to the fact that we tend to be top heavy on the safety side while ignoring the right to choice side. Carmen was blessed to be the facilitator of the first Surplus Safety Symposium in Sept. of 2012 sponsored by the Erickson School and funded by the Rothschild Foundation. Stakeholders identified issues related to, and potential solutions for, surplus safety.
YouTube 5 min. clip: The Hidden Dangers of Surplus Safety
Here is the 5 min. clip
Carmen is available to teach on the interesting subject of Surplus Safety and finding the balance between preventing accidents (one CMS requirement that gets all the attention) and honoring resident choice (four strong CMS requirements).
She also teaches on the subject under the heading of New Negative Outcome - what is the negative outcome of not honoring choice we are not addressing?
The New Negative Outcome and Harm from Not Honoring Choice
If you live in a nursing home with an “ordered” restricted diet and told “you can’t eat that” for, say, ten years, what kind of harm does that cause? The Hippocratic Oath is “do no harm,” but are we? In her background paper for the Creating Home II food and dining symposium written under contract with CMS, C. Bowman fleshes out this concept of new negative outcome. Ponder it with us along with surplus safety developed by Drs. Ronch and Thomas, the right to folly, the reasonable person concept, the new CMS regulations and guidance regarding “choices” and research that shows how the opportunity to make choice contributes to brain health. There are positive outcomes from being given choice as well as negative outcomes from not being given choice that not many people are talking about. (90 minute or longer session)
