Best Practice Spotlight Organization

The two Bruce County Homes--Brucelea Haven and Gateway Haven—were chosen by the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario (RNAO) as Best Practice Spotlight Organization. The Homes will be designates implementing Best Practice Guidelines to ensure quality resident care.

You are probably wondering…why this is such a big deal and why are we so excited, and what does this all mean? First of all, the Bruce County Long Term Care (LTC) Homes were just one of 5 selected out of the 600 homes that applied for this designation. This is a real distinction given there were so many qualified Homes that applied, with only a few meeting the criteria for selection. This is exciting news because it puts us on a path to becoming a Best Practice Spotlight Organization. Most importantly—and this truly is the emphasis to this program--it means that by using evidence-based best practices, we can provide the best possible care of our residents.

Why is that? Because the RNAO uses only evidence based best practice guidelines to guide and instruct nurses in their work. But it is not an easy or straight line from Designate to Spotlight Organization. There are many smaller goals to accomplish before reaching that much larger goal. The RNAO has outlined a three-year program running from the launch party at the end of June 2017 until 2020. We fully intend to accomplish our goal because we are an intrepid, curious lot who are always up for a challenge and exploring better ways of providing quality care to our residents!

Each Bruce County LTC Home has their own focus during the program. Gateway Haven will concentrate on Skin and Wound care and End of Life Care (already launched early in June 2017). Brucelea will focus on Prevention of Abuse and Neglect and Falls, and Leadership. The information learned during this process will be shared and incorporated in the two Homes.

To further highlight this exciting challenge you may have heard that June 13 was “Take your MPP to Work Day”. Bill Walker, is the MPP representative for Bruce-Grey Owen Sound and requested that he sit on the committee for Long Term Care in Ontario. Bill toured Gateway Haven and then sat down with our Director of Care, Bettyanne Waddington, RN and BPSO Champion and Team Lead, along with our RNAO coach, Susan Sweeney, RN to discuss a variety of topics, uppermost being the Bruce County Homes becoming a Best Practice Spotlight Organization designate.

We hope you will join us in extending congratulations to our Bruce County Homes during this important and exciting journey and we look forward to meeting our goal of becoming a Best Practice Spotlight Organization in the future!