'Healthy Living, Healthy Skin' program seeing immediate benefits
Thursday, July 14, 2005 -- Craig Anderson
Improving treatment and increasing staff knowledge about skin care has been the focus of ‘Healthy Living, Healthy Skin,’ a year-long project co-ordinated by Candace Chartier, OMNI operations manager.

Skin wounds – often the cause of dismemberment and in some cases death by viral infection – are increasingly a serious health issue in long-term care facilities, says Candace.

Homes are seeing an increase in residents who arrive with skin wound or skin wound complications, and training for personal support workers and nursing staff in employing new techniques – including scalpel debridement and the use of specialized wound dressings – has been taken on with a greater sense of urgency, says Candace.

Often a resident will have been in an acute care setting, says Candace, and they will arrive at the home with a stage three or four ulcer. Since PSWs and nurses are, as Candace refers to them – “the first set of eyes” – increasing their knowledge about how wounds develop was the project’s first focus.

Theresa Hurd, a wound care specialist, was enlisted to oversee the educational programming of ‘Healthy Living, Healthy Skin.’ Following her initial training program in February 2004, there have been ongoing seminars and updates, involving staff in all departments – nutritional care, activation, as well as directors of care (DOCs). Some medical procedures – like scalpel debridement of dead skin – have been taught in a rather creative manner, such as practising on pig feet.

A medical procedure of this kind is not likely to be put into regular use yet although long-term care facility skin care treatment is often more advanced than that available in hospitals, says Candace.

But wound dressings – provided by Smith and Nephew, OMNI’s skin care product suppliers – are more likely to be used, especially considering the advancements made in this area.

A stocktaking of the project at OMNI’s annual Communities of Practice meeting – held this year at the Ramada in Belleville – found that across OMNI homes the project is having a profound effect.

Maplewood, says Candace, has seen its wounds decrease "substantially." Village Green DOC Jackie Maxwell has acted as a skin care advocate to the Lennox-Addington health care facility. A resident at Rosebridge, suffering from a leg wound so severe that a tendon was exposed, was treated with a number of moisture-inducing bandages and is nearing complete recovery. “It’s pretty phenomenal,” says Candace.

The next step for the project is the establishment of ‘Healthy Living, Healthy Skin' care teams in individual homes. Recent turnover in some OMNI homes of Theresa Hurd-trained staff has made implementation difficult, says Candace. The care teams are comprehensive, she says, because healthy skin has to be addressed in as dynamic and thorough way as possible.

“Nutrition is a huge part of it,” says Candace.

Candace says that ‘Healthy Living, Healthy Skin’ is enabling OMNI to meet the new Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care guidelines.

“We’ve been proactive in that sense, where a lot of companies out there are struggling to get this in place, we’ve got everything in place,” she says.