For 3rd Year in a Row, Gifford
Wins Award for Menig Home

The Menig Extended Care Facility at Gifford Medical Center has earned two awards and $25,000 from the state for the third consecutive year.

Menig received the Gold Star Employer award from the Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living and the Vermont Health Care Association along with the Nursing Home Quality Award from the same state department on Thursday in Stowe. The Quality Award comes with a $25,000 check to be used to further improve residents’ quality of life and care.

Menig was one of only four of the state’s 41 nursing homes statewide to receive the Quality Award. Fourteen received the Gold Star Employer award.

Menig, a 30-bed Level 1 care facility built in 1998 and expanded last year due to overwhelming demand for care, received the same awards in 2006 and in 2005, when the Gold Star award was first offered. Additionally, Menig Director of Nursing Brooks Chapin of Chelsea received Nursing Director of the Year in 2005 from Vermont Health Care Association and charge nurse Judy Libby also of Chelsea was honored as Registered Nurse of the Year by the same association in 2006.

"It’s very difficult to get this award. It is a big, big honor," Chapin said of particularly the Quality Award.

The awards are a reflection of the Menig staff’s hard work, Chapin said. "Words cannot begin to express how proud I am of everyone and how much they are appreciated," Chapin said. "It’s truly an honor to work with such dedicated staff."

The Gold Star award recognizes professional development that enhances staff retention, and staff and resident satisfaction. Menig was honored for specialized training it did in wound care.

The Quality Award is based on the results of health and life safety surveys, cost effectiveness, a lack of substantiated complaints and resident satisfaction survey results. It recognizes "outstanding nursing homes, which have met high standards of quality of care for Vermont’s nursing home residents," according to the state.

The $25,000 that accompanies the award in the past has paid for items such as plantings and birdfeeders for the courtyard garden located just outside Menig’s dining room, remote-controlled compact disc players for residents’ rooms, a flat screen television for the dining room, a whirlpool bathing chair, new table clothes and cloth napkins, curtains, field trips, entertainment programs and handmade quilts for residents’ beds. Residents will be asked how they wish to spend this year’s award, and staff are also brainstorming what will improve residents’ quality of life.

"We do it all for our residents," said Menig licensed nursing assistant Raylene Bryan of receiving the award.

Added Activities Director Terry MacDougal: "The residents were very excited to hear the news, and they’re proud to live here."

Patrick Flood, Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living commissioner, is expected to visit Menig to formally present the Quality Award .