Extendicare Kirkland Lake monitors and uses data to tailor and improve the care they provide to residents in their home.
We spoke with Jennifer Kasner, the administrator for Extendicare Kirkland Lake; Derek Callahan, the program manager at Extendicare Kirkland Lake; and Tanya Schumacher, a long-term care consultant for the northern region of Extendicare to find out more.
Could you tell us about how you are collecting sociodemographic data? What data do you collect, and how do you collect it?
We use PointClickCare software to document information about residents in our home – this is basically the resident’s chart. We’ll start to collect data here when we receive an admission package from home and community care (for example, the resident’s RAI-MDS assessment), and continue to collect information during the interview and admission assessment.
During the intake process, we use a form (All About Me) to learn more about each resident and their preferences. The staff continually update this information as they get to know the resident, and trusted friends and family can also contribute. And finally, we also use a software program, ActivityPro, to record and monitor information on how residents are using our programming.
How are you using this data to drive your quality improvement work?
All of this information is used to guide the development of care plans specific to each resident, as well as programming for the different types of people living in our homes. We also use this data to identify needs for partnerships with supports in the community or other organizations to help provide things we can’t provide within the home.
The PointClickCare software can generate reports to look at different factors such as residents’ age, cultural background, religion, and gender. We review this data as a group at our monthly continuous quality improvement committee meetings. We also look at attendance of all programs during these meetings, and continually evolve our programming based on the needs of our current resident population (which is constantly changing), which programs have good attendance and which do not, feedback from the resident council, surveys of residents and families, and just from listening to our residents.
The continuous quality improvement committee is interdisciplinary, so nursing will bring up potential barriers to participation in programming. It’s a team effort to improve.
As an example, over the last few years, our home has accepted Indigenous residents who were evacuated as the flooding has happened on the north coast (for example, in Attawapiskat) as crisis admissions. Some of these individuals might speak only Oji-Cree or another Indigenous language. We’ve connected with Beaver House First Nation in Kirkland Lake to provide these residents with cultural support after being removed from First Nations communities. Residents who are able to can visit the Beaver House First Nation facility, and Beaver House elders also sometimes visit during afternoon programming, bringing traditional foods such as bannock and tea.
Have you developed any other partnerships to help you meet the needs of your residents?
Yes – more and more, we are seeing younger populations represented in our residents. These younger residents may not feel that they fit in to the population and environment, and we want to help them to have a lifestyle that is relevant to their age and who they are.
Some of these younger residents have developmental delays. We have been working with the community and the Passport program to enable them to participate in the community and mingle with people their age. Through the Passport program, eligible residents are linked with Community Living and can go to more age-relevant activities such as hockey games.
We are also seeing an increasing number of younger residents with mental health issues. These residents are discharged from community programs when they’re admitted to long-term care. This is a newer population for our home, and we recognize that we may not be able to provide all the supports these residents need within the home. So we work with the Canadian Mental Health Association and other community supports to speak on the residents’ behalf and enable them to keep doing the activities that they had been doing in the community.
The environment of the long-term care home is not necessarily ideal for these residents, who don’t fit in to the ‘typical’ criteria for long-term care, but there is nowhere else they can be placed. There is a risk that residents come in to the home and it becomes their only reality, their life and their world. It’s successful and rewarding to the staff, residents, and community to make sure that they maintain their relationships with the community.
We really try to ensure their quality of life is good even though we can’t necessarily provide everything these residents need within the home.
Do you have any advice to give others?
The first step is knowing where to get the data; then it’s a matter of reviewing it often and using it to improve care.
Most long-term care homes are using PointClickCare and doing assessments such as the RAI-MDS, so they are already collecting a lot of data. If homes know how to run the data reports using PointClickCare, they can monitor trends in their residents’ characteristics and use these to identify gaps in programming, care, or supports.
We review data together monthly at continuous quality improvement meetings, and we integrate it into daily conversations as well. As a team, we are always talking about it.
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