Link between quality and care delivery strengthened at 2017 Quality Forum

Presentations highlight this important connection

CALABOGIE, Ont. – There is a strong link between quality and care delivery in long-term care, and one of the goals of OMNI Health Care’s 2017 Quality Forum was to highlight this connection.

Patrick McCarthy, OMNI’s president and CEO, notes that the focus of each annual forum is on quality and its importance in making OMNI the home of choice for residents and the employer of choice for staff members.

“We started with the Quality Forums in 2012, and back then it was very foundational and mysterious – what is this word ‘quality’?” McCarthy says. “And now, that linkage is so solidly built that you just can go to the next level. …

“This is a Quality Forum, and we would like everything to be wrapped around quality. We measure (quality), and it’s common sense and it’s things that we really understand.”

This year’s Quality Forum was held at Calabogie Peaks Resort May 30 to June 1.

During the afternoon of Day 1, Sean McCann, former member of Canadian folk-rock band Great Big Sea, kicked off the event with a personal and insightful presentation about his struggle with alcohol addiction.

Jayne Harvey, a registered nurse, motivational speaker, consultant and longtime fan-favourite at Quality Forums, delivered an engaging presentation on the importance of mindfulness.

Specifically, her presentation focused of the importance of how being mindful of actions among long-term-care home staff members affects others and how this directly relates to the quality of care delivered to residents.

Shawn Riel, OMNI’s chief operating officer, notes how this subtheme of mindfulness – and how mindfulness relates to quality – was at the forefront of the presentations.

“Sean started it off. Stuff happens in people’s lives. There are so many people (in the room) who have, in their own way, lived with some really horrid things,” Riel says. “All those things impact them, and we forget that sometimes.”

Harvey’s presentation examined positivity and understanding the gifts people bring to the table in a long-term-care home setting. Her presentation also discussed respecting and valuing others, even if you sometimes don’t agree with them.

“I loved the mindfulness (aspect of the forum) – stopping and thinking,” Riel says.

McCarthy underscores the value that each year’s Quality Forum has brought to the next one since 2012.

“Everything we learn rolls forward – it’s always a journey in quality,” he says. “You build upon every year. And every year we’ve done that.”

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