Garden Terrace adapting services to meet complex-care challenges

Staff members utilizing in- and out-of-home resources

June 15, 2012 -- Deron Hamel

Vanessa Labrecque says Garden Terrace is seeing an increase in residents who are coming from hospital after acute-care professionals have done all they can.

This change in resident demographic means that the home’s staff members are adapting the services they offer to meet people’s needs, says the Kanata long-term care home’s clinical care co-ordinator (CCC).

This means utilizing in- and out-of-home resources.

For example, one resident, a 65-year-old woman, is diabetic and has had chronic kidney failure. She has had a nephrostomy tube for one of her kidneys and now has congestive heart failure, which results in her having occasional “flare-ups” that resemble heart attacks.

Residents such as this lady require care beyond hospital management, so they’re sent to long-term care homes like Garden Terrace, says Labrecque. When issues arise, such as this resident’s “flare-ups,” the nursing team contacts the pain and symptom management experts at nearby Élisabeth Bruyère Health Centre.

“They will make recommendations for certain medications to be administrated when this lady has these flare-ups, and we’ve actually got a handle on it now where we can manage it,” Labrecque explains.

“As things progress with long-term care, it’s going this way where we’re going to have to do more advanced care in the nursing homes.

“Many of the resources we use are through the Community Care Access Centre, (and) we have community nurses that come in and they’ll help with any IVs and they’ll do training, and if they need to provide assistance they’ll come in and help us out even after they’ve done the training.”

Labrecque says the increasing number of residents with complex-care needs at Garden Terrace in recent years is reflective of the changes she sees coming to long-term care at large. And with the sector experiencing more residents requiring chronic care Garden Terrace is preparing to meet the need.

To illustrate this, nurses at the home have received training in hypodermoclysis — the process of correcting short-term fluid and electrolyte balances — and IV therapy.

“I believe it is going to come to a point where we will have to do those things here in the long-term care setting,” says Labrecque.

“We’re already doing it here, we do have community nurses that come in and help us, but it is going to come to a point where it’s going to be the norm here.”

Many Garden Terrace nurses are taking the initiative to sign up for educational courses outside of the home to better meet the need of long-term care’s changing landscape, Labrecque says.

“For them, they see the change happening, too, so they’re trying to keep up with that and they realize now they need to . . . develop their knowledge and new skills,” she says.

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