Evolving
care practices shaping health care from the ground up Tuesday, October 4, 2005
- OMNIway Staff
In the past four months we asked OMNI administrators
for examples of life-changing care provision.
What came back was astonishing. After
having followed up on five of those story leads we stumbled
on to the realization that each of them was a story
about someone we wouldn’t have previously considered
a typical long-term care resident.
A look back at the archives uncovered
more such success stories.
The people receiving support in OMNI’s
long-term care homes included people with intellectual
disabilities, recovering alcoholics, one person with
a brain injury and another recovering from an automobile
accident.
These success stories demonstrate the
far-reaching capabilities of front-line care givers,
and the importance of supportive measures thinking.
It’s clear that each success is a result of deep
understanding of each individual’s care needs
and histories, combined with the dedicated hard work
of front-line caregivers. In several cases, supportive
and involved family members demonstrated the healing
power of their involvement.
A second round of interviews to dig a
little deeper into the evolving role OMNI homes are
playing in the care of community members showed that
administrators have thought long and hard about the
changes they are seeing and issues and challenges related
to them.
While the system as a whole may not have
adjusted to the new environment, the care taken by individual
homes in making decisions is important to note.
Access centres, family members, other
care professionals may not fully understand the capabilities
of long-term care, or how a new and different kind of
resident may or may not fit in that setting.
As the stories illustrate, working with
other care providers in new partnerships, recruiting
volunteers in meaningful ways, and taking a step out
of the norm is making a difference.
As time passes, this kind of integrative
care setting will increasingly prove its relevance.
It will also expand its capacity, one step at a time,
to address many of widening cracks in the health care
system.
Follow up interviews with decision makers
in the homes showed that case-by-case, individual consideration
is given. That careful diligence of individual homes
is what will ensure that efforts to better integrate
care, and expand the role of long term care will work.
Homes are closest to the changes and are where trust
must be placed to address them appropriately.
In Ontario, the Ministry of Health and
Long Term Care is unfolding an effort to further integrate
care provision. As it does so, the practices developing
at the grassroots level, for all the right reasons,
are already sparking the kinds of changes they are seeking.
If you are
interested in becoming
a member of our family as a resident, an employee
or a volunteer please contact us!
Smaller
homes coping, for now, with growing demographic
diversity says administrator
When Leeanne Hadley is asked to reflect on the changes
taking place in the demographic base of long-term
care homes, with a growing diversity of both younger
clients and clients with unique and challenging
care needs, she quickly turns to the topic of the
social. Full
Story
'Residents
are our mentors,' says administrator
For Linda Pierce, administrator at Village Green,
changes in long term care – more varied resident
demographics, for example - haven’t affected
the home appreciably. What is to be held foremost
in mind, she says, is the wealth of experience elderly
residents bring to the home.
Full Story
Changing
demographics make ongoing staff education necessary:
administrator
As long term care expands to include younger individuals
with unique medical conditions like brain injuries
it becomes vitally important that staff members
are well-trained in the physical, psychological
and social needs of these individuals, says Connie
Garden, administrator at Pleasant Meadow. Full
Story
Long-term
care becoming an option for wider variety of people:
administrator
Long-term care is becoming an option – in
some cases life-saving - for those who have completely
‘slipped through society’s cracks,’
says Mary Lynn Lester, administrator at West lake
Terrace. Full
Story
