Sunrise Health Region LTC

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. Background

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.

Risk Assessment Tool Changed The Scott tool is recognized as the best tool in Long-Term Care.

Data Collection Forms

Logo Criteria has changed from high risk score only to: 1.Resident is still mobile 2.Resident has fallen twice in last six months 3.Resident has a high risk score This graph shows that all admissions are assessed so that falls logo’s and intervention planning can take place on the unit. Data Collected so far from the Pilot

This graph shows how often are the risk assessments done after a fall occurred. The months of July and August has more casual staffing and that were not as familiar with the pilot project objectives resulting in fewer clients being assessed within 48 hours. This provided us with an area to work on so that we have all staff aware of the goals of the falls prevention program. This graph shows that all falls that were reported were assessed within the pilot unit. Outbreak

Changes Tested The two major changes that we have been testing is the assignment of the falls logo to residents and the use of the tools to plan interventions to reduce falls. While the fall tool changed the staff like being able to follow when falls are occurring. This has lead to more active intervention planning.

Lessons Learned Starting over summer slows things down. Planning is key to successful implementation. That the information learned that is passed along to families is key to improved communication. That we can predict where falls occur by watching where they have happened in the past.

Next Ste ps We will work on improving our intervention planning. Involving patients and families in the fall tracking and intervention process. We will set up story boards to track our progress within our pilot site to inform staff and families. We will set up a schedule for region wide roll out of this program for LTC. Writing guidelines on how to fill out the forms and what is being asked for.