Residents First initiative to unite OMNI homes, improving quality

Increased sharing amongst homes will lead to higher quality of life for residents

April 6, 2011 -- Ryan Rogers

Almonte Country Haven administrator Rick Gourlie says the new Residents First initiative is going to bring long-term care homes closer together, providing a strong foundation upon which best practices and solutions can be shared.

Residents First is a new quality improvement initiative being rolled out across the province that's built to ensure each resident enjoys safe, effective and responsive care to help them achieve the highest potential quality of life.

All 17 OMNI homes have introduced Residents First along with tools like a priority calculator, which helps leadership teams identify objectively which quality improvement issues to tackle in what order.

Residents First provides its participants with a common set of quality standards and indicators for continuous quality improvement and consistency.

Gourlie says the most promising element of this initiative is the common experience amongst participants Ontario-wide.

He says the common application of Residents First will lead to more sharing between homes, especially at operations meetings.

"I think ops meetings will have a more quality improvement aspect to them," he says. "We're not looking at problems anymore. We're looking at actual resolutions and processes that can be applied universally."

The common experiences will also focus attention on the same key priorities; so many minds across OMNI will be searching for solutions to the same challenge.

Gourlie says bringing the entire team together to establish a complete corporate approach to challenges will yield excellent results.

Forest Hill administrator Sarah Ferguson-McLaren is a member of the faculty of Residents First, an "excellent choice," according to Gourlie.

"Having a champion like Sarah is a great benefit to us all because of her approachability and her knowledge," he says. "It will make things very easy for us, if we should get stuck or stymied on an issue, that we can call her up and get great guidance."

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