We are very pleased to have recently been granted 4 year MOH Certification! No corrective actions and three Continuous Improvements.
This follows on from a fully attained Partial Provisional Audit that was required prior to opening our two new wings earlier this year with no corrective actions.
Make no mistake! HCSL policies, software and support have played a major part in these accomplishments. The HCSL software we use means we have easy access to information in real time.
I started working with Gillian of HCSL shortly after I took on the role of Facility Nurse Manager at Bethsaida Retirement Village six years ago. The facility was not using Healthcare Compliance Solutions policies at the time and perhaps this was reflected in the previous audit results.
Gillian is always responsive to emails and phone calls which is critical when timely advice is required.
The HCSL regular newsletters are interesting with relevant and up to date information on issues affecting aged care.
Gillian is a lovely person to deal with. She is thoughtful, professional, pragmatic and I have always found her to be keen to help, with practical advice on any issues that might arise in the management of a retirement facility.
I thoroughly recommend HCSL to all aged care facilities.
Tracy Holdaway (RN BN)
Facility Nurse Manager
Bethsaida Retirement Village
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his New Zealand designed web based (on-line / in-the-cloud) Bench-marking and quality management system from Healthcare Compliance Solutionhttp://www.hcslqms.co.nz/s Ltd allows you to:
- Bench-mark in real-time – specific to resident type, event type, date and time of day.
- Have automated default reports to save you time analysing your data trends and patterns
- Drill down into your data easily to identify opportunities for continuous improvement
- Complete your internal audits online and have the corrective actions auto-populate into a corrective action log
- Log and manage adverse events
- Bench-marking of adverse events against other aged care providers
- Support evidencing an active Health & Safety programme is in place
- Log and manage infections – automatic outbreak registers
- Bench-marking of infections against other aged care providers
- Log and manage your complaints with time-frame, investigation and response prompts
- Dashboard view options for level of care and any chosen 3 monthly time-frame review
- Dashboard view option of adverse events or infections
- Logs (event registers) appear with individual events in one colour when open and change to another colour when the event is closed. This allows you to see quickly the status of events.
- Use in conjunction with your current policies / procedures or update to the HCSL site specific created policies and procedures.
Your organisation policies and procedures and related documents (if created by HCSL) are also accessible through the Facility Documents tab on the left of the screen for remote anytime, anywhere access. The keyword search option on the policies and procedures in addition to precise indexing and coding of documents makes it very quick and easy to locate information for staff to reference.
You can also upload your own documents for confidential safe storage.
This is what Rhonda Sherriff, NZACA Clinical Advisor says about using the HCSL QA system:
“I am very happy to endorse your system as the information is invaluable for CNMs to analyse the data/information and make informed decisions on best practice and innovation to decrease hazards, improve outcomes, and mitigating factors for resident welfare. I’m pleased you are delving into the data to the level you are, as it’s time saving for sites in many respects, and so easy to dice and slice the information to get the trends. CNM’s used to spend hours just writing up the collective information before the analysis, so hugely time saving”
To view a brief video explanation of the system click here. This programme has been operating in NZ Aged Care since mid 2016 so now has many thousands of pieces of data to compare yourself against.
To find out more contact us here.
Making monitoring your service remotely in LIVE time easy!
| We asked a random group of clients for their responses in relation to using HCSL Aged Care Cloud based software.
What do you like best about the HCSL software and your current use of it? Below is their responses: |
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The question of whether mandated minimum nursing hours would work has been asked previously. The workload of care and nursing staff is frequently discussed with staff reporting they are pressured for time to complete all the necessary duties assigned. The Nursing staff have different but over-lapping functions to care staff. When reviewing your staffing, it’s important to include a number of factors into any review when looking at the productivity and efficiency of your team.
We suggest you look at not only leadership and skill-mix, which are vital for safe services but also consider other factors. These can include the location of high acuity needs residents within your service. With an increase in the use of dual beds, the mix between rest home and higher acuity hospital level of care are now intermingled and not specifically allocated to one area of the building. This means the Registered Nurses providing clinical monitoring and oversight may have to spread their attention to a much more fragmented and broader geographical area in your service than was previously the case.
The location of resources and time spent looking for items of use and equipment could be minimised if more thought was put into the design of new facilities and the locating and management of replenishing stores for ready access by staff as and where they need them. Who does the running and fetching could also be considered in work roles so staff with high end clinical skills are spending the bulk of their time on performing functions specific to their role and skill. Not doing tasks that could be better delegated to others.
After the recent sudden closure of a care facility in Australia without apparent planning or communication with families, there has been outrage that such a thing could happen. The “Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced her Government would order fixed nurse-to-resident ratios in state-owned aged-care facilities.” The ABC news report (19th July 2019) goes on to say “at least 50 per cent of staff having contact with residents in 16 publicly run aged-care centres to be nurses.” I don’t know if by nurses they mean Registered Nurses only and not Enrolled nurses but I can’t help wonder if this alone will ensure safety.
One year on from Simon Wallace (NZACA CEO) reporting on staffing shortages, we haven’t seen any improvement it would seem! In New Zealand an increasing proportion of our Registered Nurses have come to New Zealand to practice with no prior working knowledge of aged care services. They frequently have limited aged care related experience to conduct the complex assessment and clinical management of high acuity residents in a residential care setting. This is not to diminish their value as we can’t provide the services needed otherwise.
What I’m trying to highlight in the current circumstances is, we’re frequently seeing nurses set up to fail or provide less than safe care as they simply don’t have the experience in this specialised field of nursing. I recall conversations in the early 1990’s predicting a massive nursing shortage. It appears that in the time-span between then and now, we haven’t addressed this issue.
We welcome comments and suggestions of how this could be addressed here in New Zealand before we end up in the depths of a staffing crisis which halts care.
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On the 25th April each year we remember those who went before us to fight for the protection of others. While emphasis is often on those who died in service to their country, it’s also a time to remember those who returned from war changed and altered forever by the experiences they’ve had. Not just for the soldiers going and returning to war but their family.
The mother who describes holding her son as he heads off to the front line. Embracing him, breathing in his smell which a mother knows so well. Holding her head against his chest hearing the beat of his heart wondering if she’ll ever be able to hold him and hear his heart beat again. Feeling the harshness of the fabric of his uniform and wondering what other harshness he’ll encounter.
The soldier as a member of a family, not only left grieving mothers behind but were sometimes already parents themselves going off to war leaving wives and children behind. All family members impacted in their own way from their own perspective of events. How does a wife or child accept the decision of the men in their life going to war, to do ones duty leaving children wondering why they were being deserted in favour of the uncertainty of battle? Those children then growing older day by day until the time they themselves are in their 80’s and find themselves still welling up in tears at the memory of the day their father left to go to battle. Not understanding but seeing the change in the father who returns, different, distant and ill from the effects of sand breathed into his lungs while stationed in Egypt. The soldier returning, having nightmares of horrors seen which cannot be unseen or forgotten. Limbs and body intact but emotional scars and ongoing adverse health issues. Not all wounds are visible.
I visited the Gallipoli exhibit at the Museum of New Zealand ‘Te Papa’ (our place) in Wellington with my mother and sister. I was mesmerized and deeply affected by the raw emotion depicted in the models created for the exhibit by Weta Workshop. The image of this nurse, Staff Nurse Lottie Le Gallais who was on board the hospital ship Maheno which set out from Wellington. She’d hoped to catch up with her brother but the model shows the anguish of the moment she receives her returned letters to him saying “killed, return to sender”. I can’t imagine the strength needed to sustain such pain amidst the anguish of war but still carry on to serve those needing care.
I live in Christchurch and after the recent terrorist attack resulting in the death of 50 people, we’re seeing and feeling the result of war-like destruction of life. You see it in the faces of those closely affected. The internal pain of senseless loss.
A time to ponder on the Anzac values of courage, compassion, commitment and comradeship and see if they are reflected in our own organisations as relevant to care services. This Thursday, 25th April, Anzac day is a time to reflect and be grateful – lest we forget.
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Since the emergence of residential care facilities in New Zealand, the models of care have continued to change, but are they changing fast enough? The clinical needs of residents have escalated and so the way services are provided must also reflect a change in practice to meet changing resident needs. A common theme being reported among older member of our communities is that of isolation and depression. Isolation, according to the Collins dictionary relates to separation, withdrawal, loneliness and segregation.
I was fortunate to visit Greece recently which is reputed to have a larger proportion of older adults than most other EU countries. Gerontology is derived from the Greek words geron, “old man” and -logia, “study of” so it made sense to discuss models of care with families and health care professionals including pharmacists. I discovered there are few residential care services in Greece and those that do exist are found mostly in Athens rather than the islands. Families provide the majority of care with ‘family’ being noted as the key foundation to Greek society. Grandparents are frequently living within the extended family with the younger generations and taking responsibility for caring for their grandchildren. The economy is poor and social networks are heavily relied on to provide support.
From my observations, conversations with others, and literature, the older adults of Greece are kept actively engaged in the community. They are frequently involved in running family businesses if they are not relied on for supporting the needs of their children or grandchildren. Family networks remain strong and when interviewing people about how older adults will be cared for, the automatic assumption is that family will provide that service. Dr Elizabeth Mestheneos told me that approximately 1% of their older population may well be in residential homes. There are Open Care Community centres in virtually every Local Authority which are called KAPI. There are also Help at Home services and Day care centres in some Local authorities.
The models of care and workforce capacity currently in place in New Zealand are unlikely to meet increasing demands so change is needed. The aged care sector could lead change as new models are developed, trialed and advanced. Multiple studies confirm these new models need to include holistic, consumer directed services. Not only meeting physical needs but also social connections and the opportunity to be involved in meaningful activities that contribute to others. This also includes some use of technology to support connections with others. While they are of assistance to some, there is no substitute for human connection, person to person, face to face. The experience of ageing, social network supports, funding models and the context in which care and support are provided certainly differ from country to country.
In New Zealand residential care settings we have activities / recreational programmes which support inclusion and engagement. Being involved in meaningful activities are also key factors in contributing to a sense of well-being. I observed older adults in Greece undertaking meaningful activities in the community like feeding the communal cats of Kos or looking after grandchildren, continuing to run a second hand open-air shop to add to the family income or playing games with friends games. Groups of older men often congregated outside cafes for conversation, coffee and playing cards or board games. A Menzshed story reflects on how one New Zealand community are attempting to address the gap ageing can create in the life of some men. While funding is different in NZ to Greece and the family network is more often scattered geographically in New Zealand, there remains more opportunity to include community. The care setting could also be enhanced more by reflecting the smaller numbers of people we are used to living with in the family home, rather than the larger numbers in some care facilities. A model that more closely reflects the life patterns our community members have been used to, with them directing how these continue into the latter years of life with the goal of ageing in a healthy way, optimising body, brain and social networks.
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Mattresses aren’t just something to lie on but if not maintained and cared for appropriately, also have the potential for causing harm.
As I travel a lot for work, I have the opportunity to test many different mattresses, all with varying degrees of comfort. This reminds me how difficult it must be for those who may be suffering painful joints to get a good night’s sleep. Appropriate mattresses are not only required to reduce pain from positioning discomfort but also reducing risk to residents. This include ensuring the mattresses are of a suitable standard and fit for purpose.
I’ve seen a number of mattresses which had hardened and torn linings and were well past being able to provide much comfort or an appropriate degree of pressure support. Some had masking tape used in an attempt to cover splits in the mattress cover. Others had holes in and were badly stained from exposure to body substances. As the residents in care are becoming frailer, with increasing acuity, the need for ensuring appropriate pressure support is crucial to preventing pressure injuries, maintaining comfort and maximizing the opportunity for good sleep.
There is the potential for old and in poor condition mattresses to be a potential source for infection transmission. For those of you operating newer facilities, this may not yet be an issue. For older facilities, part of stock and resource control should include mattress stock checks to verify they are in fact still fit for use. When conducting checks, determine the mix of mattress types you have and speak with your supplier about a replacement programme should this be necessary. As mattresses differ, so do beds and it’s important to make sure the mattress you use is appropriate for the particular bed type and size.
When reviewing your mattress stocks and purchasing new mattresses you might like to think about the following factors:
- Only purchase from reputable suppliers. Review the manufacturer’s instructions for use to ensure they include verification of cleaning instructions and ask about preventative maintenance. This may include staffing training e.g. via the use of online training videos or instruction booklets.
- Make sure you record the date of purchase and do your best to track each mattress and pillow to maximize warranties and make plans for replacement. Add the item to the facility cleaning schedules for regular cleaning and drying of exterior surfaces which should be durable, water-repellent and quick drying. They should also be seamless, if possible. When there are seams or edges, much sure these are situated away from resident skin contact to prevent absorption of liquid into interior and increased friction.
- All seams must be tightly closed and sealed. Masking or packaging tape is not appropriate for sealing. When mattresses become worn and tear, you might like to have a supplier representative review to see what options are available for repair or replacement.
- When reviewing the condition of mattresses, inspect all mattress surfaces, covers, seams and zippers for proper function and damage including wear, tears, splits, cracks, punctures, permanent odours and stains. If visible contamination from body substances are present, determine appropriate steps (eg. replacement or repair).
- To support longevity of mattresses, remind staff not to place any furniture or sharp objects on mattresses. Protect the mattress with mattress protectors only if advised by the supplier this is appropriate. A number of pressure support functions in mattresses may be adversely impacted by the use of additional mattress coverings to do check.
- Cleaning and disinfection must be considered in relation to mattresses, covers, wedges, cushions and pillows which are all classified as non-critical medical devices. Clean and low-level disinfect according to the manufacturer’s instructions between different resident use and when visibly soiled. Some mattress covers are removable for laundering so remember to verify which ones can be cleaned separately.
- Remove damaged or stained items from service and report these in your maintenance book or to the Manager. Follow manufacturer’s instructions for use and disposal of damaged mattresses, covers, and pillows, and in accordance with infection prevention and control guidelines.
- Ensure when using alternating therapy type mattresses that there is a process in place for a shift by shift verification that the pressure is maintained at the current level for the individual resident utilizing that mattress. If you plan to use an air alternating topper pad on a mattress, ensure it’s suitable for the mattress as depending on heights and size, it may not be appropriate.
Harm prevention can also be supported with advances in technology such as Pressure Monitoring sensing devices to ensure appropriate pressure distribution. I’m not aware of anyone who can rent or lease out Pressure Mappers in NZ. However Cubro have one that they can bring onsite to facilities for training and education. Make contact with your supplier to see if they can assist if this could be useful for you.
Also remember that other devices used in beds should be checked as well to ensure they are still safe and appropriate for use eg; wedges, rolls, pillows, seat cushions, mattress covers (where these are appropriate for use), bed sensor monitoring pads. For reading on how to choose the best mattress option for your needs go here.
For more related information view here.
Article compiled by Gillian Robinson (RN, BN, Lead Auditor) for Healthcare Compliance Solutions Ltd.
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Workplace culture is a term bandied around a lot but what does it actually mean and how can it be measured? When I ask staff at facilities during training sessions what they see their point of difference is, they frequently reply saying ‘we’re friendly’, or ‘we care’ or ‘we provide a homely environment’. While these are all nice to have, they would actually be expected as a basic standard. They are not specific and not anything different to the care facility down the road.
Mary Barra, Chairwoman and CEO of General Motors (GM) states that at GM, they prefer to talk about behaviours rather than culture as behaviours can be changed very quickly and are apparent straight away. She talks about the need for rapid change with the inclusion of technology and advancements in artificial intelligence being used more frequently. While those are starting to be present in some aged residential care settings, what is true of both GM and aged care is rapid change and the need to adapt quickly. This isn’t going to happen by accident and needs clear direction, guidance, leadership and engagement of all those involved.
Mary Barra also refers to bringing products to market that bring people freedom, rather than talking about cars or transportation. She focuses on the outcome for their clients. What is the key outcome you’re wanting to provide for those in your environment and how is that defined in your values? How is it implemented by your staff and how do you measure success on those outcomes?
A managers oath as I’ve mentioned before is a good place to start in defining the governance or leadership direction of organisations. Values and key performance indicators (KPIs) or quality objectives / measures need to align to this.To ensure consistent progress regular review of those KPIs or quality measures needs to occur and acted on according to the outcomes. Policies and procedures to guide consistent best practice are an important part of ensuring clear direction for staff while setting parameters for performance. Information reduces confusion and promotes change. Practice creates confidence not only in the staff but also in the resident and those observing their care.
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When balancing the clinical needs, requests and preferences of each resident in-conjunction with their right to choose, a number of factors need to be taken into consideration. We all recognise that theory and practice can change over time so when I asked Liz Beaglehole (Registered Dietitian) her professional view on this topic is, she offered the following:
The recommendation for older adults with diabetes in aged care facilities with stable diabetes is to provide an unrestrictive diet as much as possible. The notion of a ‘diabetic diet’ is outdated due to the increased risk of hypos and unwanted weight loss.
This is very individual however, a frail 80 year old woman with diabetes will likely have no diet restrictions however an obese 70 year old who may be otherwise stable would benefit from a more restrictive diet. Advice from a dietitian for individuals is recommended.
Overall, guidance from the resident about their wants is probably what determines the diet provided. This may be in accordance with recommendations or not.
Generally, the medications should be fitted to the usual eating pattern of the resident. In aged care facilities there are regular meals and generally balanced carbohydrates over the main meals (assuming good food intake) so usually this is fine. If someone has a reduced food intake, and is on insulin then a unrestrictive diet would be best.
For my menu planning I tend not to plan any special diabetic options on the cycle menus. I may include a low fat / low sugar dessert option if sites request, but generally my philosophy for aged care is not to restrict foods!
Liz is involved with a PEN (practiced based evidence in nutrition) review of the question ‘Do institutionalized, older adults (65 years of age or older) who closely follow a diet prescription have better control of their chronic disease (e.g. diabetes) than those who do not?‘ This is due by the end of March so further practice updates from this review may be available then. Liz noted that generally the evidence suggests there are no benefits with a prescriptive diet vs a more liberal one.
This article was kindly contributed by Liz Beaglehole NZRD (Canterbury Dietitians).
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