Summer 2011

Residents First Helps The Westmount Catch its Falling Leaves

The Westmount is a 161-bed long-term care home in Kitchener. With the support and guidance of the home's administrator, Catherine Schalk, and using the Residents First tools and methodology, Dragan concentrated on the incidence of falls in one area of the home, which housed 25 residents who seemed particularly prone to falling.

The home also created the Catch a Falling Leaf program in April 2010 after participating in the Residents First initiative. "I used the Residents First fishbone diagram at a meeting, and I noticed that our problem was communication - not all departments knew about our intervention for preventing falls. It just made sense to bring everyone on board." 

Regular monthly meetings, education sessions and support from the top helped frontline staff begin working as a team to bring down The Westmount's numbers. "We enlisted everyone - housekeepers too - to see what we could do to bring down not just the rate of falls but, more importantly, the number of resulting injuries."

Dragan noted the crucial role that the Residents First initiative played in helping the team achieve its goal. "Inputting the data gives us a really good picture of where we're at - the numbers show us what's going on and help us keep track of not only how many residents had a fall, but how many transferred to hospital, whether or not the falls caused injuries, etc." Dragan also uses the Residents First Falls Change Package and quality improvement sheets regularly.

The program was expanded to the entire home in February 2011. Low-cost but effective solutions such as hip protectors, high-low beds, bed alarms and special socks are used for residents.

Schalk and Dragan call the program a big success. "Using the Residents First initiative helps us focus on one or two issues at a time and figure out which solutions work best. We see it every day: there are fewer (and less harmful) falls, fewer transfers to hospital, a reduced incidence of pressure ulcers, and fewer deaths in The Westmount since we started participating in the Residents First initiative."