An Approach to Reduce Critical Incidents in Long Term Care
Channel: tcmc Quality Management Services
Date: 2015-07-24

Meant as input to discussion by the operational leadership of an  LTC home, this presentation proposes a seek and destroy approach to non-compliance likely to lead to critical incidents or complaints of a more serious nature. The proposal is based on the well known Plan, Do, Study (Check), Act management method for continual improvement made popular by Shewhart and Deming.
Written with Ontario LTC homes in mind, the principles apply to regulated nursing homes anywhere as well as some other healthcare institutions.

The underlying principles and assumptions for this proposed action plan are to take a risk-based approach in dealing with potential findings of non-compliance: 
1st, non-compliance that could result in harm to residents;
2nd, non-compliance that would likely result in high dissatisfaction on the part of residents;
3rd, non-compliance that could result in orders from the inspector due to repeated infractions.
 
Plan:
1. Compose compliance task team
2. Identify any potential, avoidable critical incidents 
3. Identify potential, likely complaints
4. Retrospective review: repeat findings
5. Identify gaps with Quality Improvement Plan (QIP)
6. Cost-Benefit Analysis: action vs. no-action

Use the above as a cheat sheet for back references while watching the video.

Questions or comments?
Contact: terry.mccann@tcmc-qms.ca