The proposal, “Improving Ontario’s Health Human Resources in Long Term Care using a Legacy Teaching Culture,” is, replied Hennin, the product of 27 years experience in the field and Bedard’s own legacy.

And although she admits she will cross her fingers as the proposal is considered by the MOHLTC (it is also expected to be read by Minister George Smitherman) she is continuing to focus on her administrator work and is turning her attention to a local steering committee to address gaps in service for acute care patients in the London region.

But the process of developing a research proposal was a seminal learning moment, says Bedard, an administrator at Meadow Park London. Key to the process was working with Dr. Al Salmoni, a researcher in the School of Kinesiology at University of Western Ontario (UWO).

“I’ll always remember this process,” says Bedard, who began work on “Legacy Teaching Culture” in October of 2005. Since then, the project, which aims at creating a truly person-oriented methodology in long term care, has blossomed, culminating this week with a formal proposal to the MOHLTC to pilot the multi-phase project using nine London-area homes as test cases.

The proposal, authored by Salmoni, Bedard, with assistance from Dr. Phillip Doyle, professor in the School of Communication and Speech Disorders at UWO, first points positively to the prevailing ethic of person-oriented care in LTC while also examining the difficulties involved in implementing this type of care.

Education and methods aimed at improving quality of life for residents, argues Bedard, is often undercut by harried work schedules, staff turnover, and the lack of involvement of the residents in shaping the process itself.

“Another limitation seems to be the top-down change processes typically used. It has been assumed that educating staff within a nursing home will ultimately “trickle” down to the residents. Most often residents and their families have been left out of the change process.”

The proposal’s outlines five objectives:

1) Develop a set of education modules that are appropriate for staff and can contribute to a certification process.

2) Design education modules as inclusive, involving both formal (LTC staff) and informal care givers

3) Develop a comprehensive tool to assess quality of life for residents, using current tools

4) Identify roles of family members and residents in developing a person-centred culture

5) Create flexible care models based on efficient and effective partnerships between informal and formal caregivers

More to come --