Promoting quality of life

Resident Centered Programming

Our teams work diligently to create a warm, welcoming environment where our long-term care residents feel at home, including celebrating the many different cultures represented in our communities. Throughout the year, long-term care homes across our network regularly adjust their ongoing resident programming and engagement activities to reflect the cultural backgrounds of their resident populations, tailoring meals, holiday celebrations and religious activities to make them feel at home.

Diet offerings are tailored as much as possible to residents’ preferences to honour resident culture and dignity. Food choices that help a resident feel truly at home are an important part of honoring resident culture and dignity.

We have a Resident and Family Experience Manager who advises and supports homes on approaches to resident engagement.

Many Extendicare homes offer innovative programs such as “Music and Memory” which allows staff to create personalized music playlists for each resident. Music enhances quality of life. Research shows a connection between familiar music and long-term memory. Tapping those memories can bring back positive emotions for persons with dementia and others, helping to reduce responsive behaviours and strengthen bonds among residents, staff and families.

Each home tailors activities for their resident. We also have a Corporate Program Consultant with a wealth of knowledge and expertise in how to engage residents to assist homes with new program development.

Restorative Care

Residents can improve their functioning after they enter a long-term care home. Through our restorative care programs, we work with residents and encourage them to do tasks such as eating, dressing, toileting and walking, on their own. Residents have entered our homes in a wheelchair and, with restorative care, have regained their ability to walk on their own.

Our pledge is to provide each resident with quality of care every day.

Palliative Care

Residents and families in long-term care deserve compassionate, high-quality care. Our teams work with families to tailor individualized care plans, for their loved ones, in what can be some of the most difficult times in their lives.

We provide enhanced palliative care training for interdisciplinary teams, in partnership with Pallium Canada, enabling high-quality clinical, spiritual and emotional palliative care supports for residents and their families.

Dementia Care

Our homes have teams who can provide care focused on the needs of people with cognitive impairments and dementia.

In some homes, we provide modified physical environments that are designed to support individuals who may have specialized needs. Additionally, across our homes, team members and leaders participate in training related to caring for individuals with dementia and cognitive impairment so that they can be supported throughout the progression of their dementia.

Responsive Behaviours

Depending on the types and complexity of behaviours, we can care for many people with responsive behaviours. In situations where a person may require more specialized care for team members to assist in stabilizing the responsive behaviours, we can provide recommendations on programs to help a person receive that specialized care as a transition step before arriving at the LTC home of their choice.

Skin and Wound Care

Skin and wound care is a critical part of seniors’ health – especially for those living in long-term care. Our nursing team members across our owned long-term care homes have received specialized skin and wound training through the Skin Wellness Associated Nurse (“SWAN”) program. They provide specialized care to residents in need of skin, hair, nail, wound and ostomy care.

We’ve collaborated with the Wound, Ostomy, and Continence Institute, operated by Nurses Specialized in Wound, Ostomy & Continence Canada (NSWOCC), to bring its Canadian Nurses Association-accredited training to Extendicare. Our partnership continues to enhance the care we provide to residents in these important areas, with ongoing quality improvement initiatives and access to the latest in skin and wound evidence-based best practices.

Graduates from this program play an important role in coaching and sharing their expertise with their nurse peers across Extendicare.

Ensuring Safety

Staff Immunization

Protecting our team members and residents in our care against viruses is a priority for us. Vaccines continue to be highly effective in limiting the impact of COVID-19, influenza, and other respiratory viruses, and remain a critical part of our program to prevent viral illnesses.

Each year, we run a national influenza campaign offering both influenza and COVID-19 vaccines in our long-term care homes and ParaMed home care communities.

Through regular education and ongoing resources, team members across the country are supported to access vaccines as they are eligible. Vaccinations are our best defence against community viruses, and the best way to keep each other and those that we care for safe.

Infection Prevention and Control Program

Each of our long-term care homes have Infection Prevention and Control Program Managers (IPAC), who are supported by our head office team of regional IPAC Consultants that support the homes. Our commitment to infection prevention is clear. Our efforts in instituting best practices, conducting audits and training staff, continue to reduce infection rates and make our homes safer.

IPAC Leads are designated in every home, providing daily oversight over proper IPAC practices throughout the home. IPAC Leads are supported by a central team of specialist IPAC consultants, who provide education, coaching and best practice implementation support. In addition, our central specialist IPAC consultants have advanced designations and certificates in various targeted aspects of IPAC practice, including facilities and redevelopment expertise, enabling them to support our communities in embedding prevention measures in various projects.

Fire Safety and Emergency Preparedness

Extendicare homes are equipped with automatic sprinkler system protection, emergency backup generators and are fitted with carbon monoxide detectors.

Extendicare follows the standard healthcare emergency colour code system and international Incident Management System structure when responding to emergencies. Under our fulsome fire and emergency preparedness programs, all homes conduct monthly fire drills and emergency preparedness drills as well as education to ensure all staff and residents are aware of and practice their responsibilities in the event of an emergency.

All of our homes are inspected by our internal fire and life safety consultant on a regular basis and have a home specific Fire Safety Plan and Emergency Response Plan that are reviewed and updated annually.

Emergency Response Plan

Medication Safety Technology

Our Medication Safety Technology (MST) Project is focused on improving medication safety through several streams of work, including by directly targeting one of our core quality indicators, antipsychotic deprescribing.

It is a collaborative effort from our team members and family members as partners in care and has oversight from our physician working group on medication safety technology.

Medication safety plays an important role in our mission to improve care every day and furthers our commitment to providing quality care to the seniors we serve.