Campaign places emphasis on resident safety
Goal to reduce number of falls, medication errors
Monday April 7, 2008 -- Jason Thompson
Capitalizing on successful efforts to increase patient safety in acute care settings, the Safer Healthcare Now (SHN) campaign is making its first official foray in long-term care.

To help long-term care homes improve resident safety, SHN has included a pair of interventions applicable to long-term care settings as part of the campaign’s second phase, which was launched April 2 in Winnipeg.

The launch was webcast for those who couldn’t make the trip.

Available to long-term care homes for immediate implementation, the first intervention is aimed at preventing falls and injury from falls in long-term care while the second examines medication reconciliation in long-term care.

Irmajean Bajnok, the director of international affairs and the best practice guidelines programs with the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (RNAO), has been chosen to lead the falls intervention.

According to Health Canada, as many as 50 per cent of residents in long-term care homes fall each year, 10 per cent resulting in serious injury, impacting quality of life for residents and cost to the health-care system.

Bajnok says the intervention is a combination of best practices and proven clinical strategies to assist health-care providers reduce falls in long-term care and monitor the results.

“This critical area impacts quality of life, life itself and health-care costs,” Bajnok says. “It’s the right thing to do and we know it can be done.”

Click here for more information or to view a video on the falls intervention.

The second intervention with long-term care applications is an extension of medication reconciliation in acute care and is led by Marg Colquhoun, project leader with ISMP Canada.

After a successful run in the acute care setting, Colquhoun says long-term care homes were clamoring to join the medication reconciliation intervention. She says the intervention builds on momentum generated in acute care but is a better fit for long-term care settings.

By checking medication lists at care interfaces, Colquhoun says the goal is to reduce medication errors thereby reducing the potential for patient harm.

“It’s not about medication reconciliation, it’s about improving patient care,” she says.

Click here for more information or to view a video on medication reconciliation intervention.

For more information about the SHN campaign, visit www.saferhealthcarenow.ca.

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