PETERBOROUGH, Ont. – The comprehensive diabetes program, corporate strategic plan renewal and capital redevelopment are among the important highlights at OMNI Health Care for 2015.
Enhancing the resident experience will continue to be the top priority for 2015, and these components will help drive quality forward, OMNI president and CEO Patrick McCarthy tells The OMNIway in a recent interview.
Diabetes program
In 2014, OMNI launched its comprehensive diabetes program. At the centre of the program is a group of evidence-based order sets addressing several aspects of diabetes care, including nursing assessment, dietary and foot care, and sick-day management. The assessments can be used when residents enter long-term care homes as part of the admissions process.
OMNI was awarded the Innovation of the Year award for the program during the Ontario Long Term Care Association’s June 5 Quality Innovation Forum in Toronto.
“We are really looking at introducing (the program) into our homes and making sure that the protocols that were developed are firmly entrenched in our homes so that it can make a difference in the treatment of our residents who have diabetes … to make for a better quality of life,” McCarthy says.
Capital redevelopment
In 2007, the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care announced a plan to increase access to quality long-term care beds in Ontario. As part of the plan, approximately 35,000 Class B, C, and D homes will be required to upgrade over the next 10 years.
“We’re deeply immersed in looking at the program to see what the impact will be,” McCarthy says. “In 2015, there will be surveys taken to determine where we stand. I think there will be more knowledge developed in terms of what the goals of government and the ministry are in terms of the capacity that they require in the various LHINs in which we work and the communities in which we serve.”
He adds: “We will have more knowledge at that point in terms of what the go-forward is for capital redevelopment. I think there are a number of issues that need to be resolved around it to make it a successful project, but that certainly is something that’s developing now and will certainly come into play in 2015.”
Strategic plan renewal
OMNI will also renew its strategic plan in 2015. A major part of this process will be gathering input from staff members, residents and their families to develop a plan that enhances quality and the resident experience at OMNI’s 18 long-term care homes.
Engagement will be key to the plan’s success, McCarthy says.
“Some of the things we want … are better survey mechanisms to ask our residents and families about resident experience, and using benchmarking so that we have a better way of looking after (resident) experience and looking at issues that we could deal with in a better way and developing staff surveys as well,” he says.
“It’s pretty important to listen and give a tool for listening as well.”