Blog

Over the past few months many of our care staff have engaged in education including medication management, care for residents with Dementia and recognition of the deteriorating resident.

Following consultation with our facility managers and our RN’s, Twilight has also commenced a six month trial around our “On Call” roster. During this time, the facility managers and RN’s will be “On Call” for their homes only.

It is felt that residents will benefit from having staff that know them and their families intimately.

The RN’s and FM’s will be aware of any potential problems that may arise after hours and pre-emptively discuss strategies with staff that may further reduce the likelihood of transfers to hospital, delays in pain relief and distress to residents and families. Since its implementation we have already seen a decrease in the frequency of after-hours calls.

Across aged care, behaviours of concern are often managed by increasing levels of psychotropic and antipsychotic medication. In July we commenced benchmarking the use of these medications across all of our homes. In benchmarking and measuring our performance against many other aged care homes and I am very pleased to report that we are doing very well in this area. Much of this is due to the compassionate and appropriate care delivered by our staff. At Twilight, residents with challenging behaviours are being more appropriately managed by our care and lifestyle staff, supported by our wonderful team of physiotherapists who are often seen stepping in to sooth an anxious resident.

Glengarry and Hunters Hill Village are preparing for their re-accreditation early next year with the assistance of Anna Maria Nagy, who is supporting both homes to ensure that all their systems are up to date and well understood by all staff.

Across Twilight we are very excited as we move towards developing “The Twilight Way” of care delivery. This involves our residents informing us of the way they want us to provide care to them and is a key component in developing our care strategies moving forward.

2018 is shaping up to be a year, where once again the wellbeing of our residents, their families and carers, is at the forefront of all we do.