Editorial
Province needs to focus on staffing, not protocols, to improve resident outcomes
Long-term care needs increased funding to meet needs
Wednesday July 30, 2008
Understaffing is a major concern in the long-term care sector, and the province needs to support caregivers by helping bolster staff numbers rather than taking away precious time from them.

Building staff numbers is key to improving resident outcomes in the long-term care sector, and the province must increase funding to help meet this need.

This message is clear now more than ever, following fierce scrutiny the long-term care sector has received from the mainstream media in recent weeks.

An investigation in early July by The Canadian Press revealed that three-quarters of the province’s long-term care homes have failed to meet some of the more than 400 standards set out by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.

Unfortunately, the reporting which has examined this matter has consistently ignored the fact that the ministry’s standards scorecard does not differentiate between the severities of violations.

Many of the standards outlined by the ministry do not reflect resident care. Rather, they are regulations regarding documentation and processes the province requires front-line staff members follow to the letter.

For example, if a resident is exhibiting agitation, staff members need to be very specific in documenting what occurred, what intervention was used, how well it worked, how many staff members were involved with the intervention and how long the intervention took.

Can you imagine having to do this over and over again throughout a 24-hour period?

The point is, these processes add up over the span of a day and eat away time — time caregivers could be spending with residents.

Caregivers in the long-term care sector are amongst the most dedicated of health-care professionals. They would rather spend one-to-one time with residents who require the most care than sit at a desk doing paperwork.

In her government-commissioned report, entitled People Caring for People: Impacting the Quality of Life and Care of Residents in Long-Term Care Homes, Saint Elizabeth Health Care CEO Shirlee Sharkey recommends the province focus on two areas of improving long-term care: increasing staff capacity and emphasizing accountability for resident outcomes.

To help achieve these goals, she recommends the ministry relax its requirements for documentation so caregivers can spend more time with residents.

As a function of OMNI’s dedication to continuous quality improvement (CQI), OMNI homes will hasten to correct any area of the ministry’s standards which have fallen short, regardless of the severity.

The ministry also needs to focus on CQI. This can be best achieved by focusing less on protocol and more on resident outcomes.