Sunrise Health Region LTC

Background Sunrise health region LTC is composed of 13 sites located within the major communities. The pilot site was selected as St. Paul’s Lutheran Home in Melville Saskatchewan. The reason for this choice is the long standing commitment to resident safety. The unit that was chosen (Bethany Way) was a cognitive impairment unit. As this unit has many mobile clients and most had a falls logo assigned to them from our current assessment system.

To Implement the Falls Prevention Program in 100% of our Facilities To pilot a program that we can implement region wide within LTC. To provide a standard approach to the assessment and intervention planning related to falls. To provide practical and usable tools to staff to evaluate why residents are falling. To produce practical interventions that staff can implement to minimize the risks of falling.

Falls Safety is Important Everywhere! An additional objective of this project is to provide staff with a usable communication tool to use with families when discussing fall concerns with their loved ones. Through the ongoing assessment of falls risks and the planning of interventions the LTC team intends to include residents and families in fall prevention planning during our regular resident care conferences.

What has happened since Dec Story board up in pilot site to showcase progress. Roll out to LTC sites started Information sent to Physicians about Vitamin D. Proposal created for Falls Kits to be available within the region.

Storyboard A copy of the presentation brought to the December meetings in Saskatoon with the most up to date graphs is now up in the pilot site. Staff has also been presented with the indicator data to look at where and how their falls are occuring.

Roll Out Occurring Planned roll out through out the facilities within the Health Region. Starting Jan 2012 ending April 2012. Guidelines were created to assist with the rollout.

Vitamin D Letters have went out to the physicians within the health region to request that residents be placed on Vitamin D. Literature accompanied the letter explaining the request. We have one facility with every resident receiving Vitamin D.

Falls Kit We are in the process of setting up a falls kits for the region. They would have hip protectors, fall mats and could be used to educate families or on a short term basis by families evaluating the products for their loved ones.

Next Steps Finish the roll out. Look to the interventions that are working well. Do we look at setting up team based reviews? Continue with storyboards through out the remaining sites as data becomes available.