THUNDER BAY – A recent inspection of Hogarth Riverview Manor is providing a sense of optimism that the facility could be on the right track to working out of third-party management.
A Ministry of Health and Long Term Care inspection of the St. Joseph’s Care Group operated home conducted last month lifted four of five compliance orders that had been previously issued.
St. Joseph’s Care Group president and chief executive officer Tracy Buckler, who admitted there is often trepidation as they await the inspection reports, sees the most recent decision an encouraging sign.
“Our team is working so hard to make the positive changes to put things in place to sustain the effort,” Buckler said on Friday. “When we did receive that last report just this month, we were really thrilled to see the progress that has been made. When four out of five compliance orders are lifted, that’s significant.”
The home, one of the largest in Ontario, was put in third-party management in 2017 at the order of the ministry after a period of ongoing non-compliance with a number of orders.
Buckler said there has been stability in management at the facility and is hoping the lifting of those orders is a trend in the right direction.
“The inspection process with the ministry of health is quite rigorous,” Buckler said.
“It’s their decision. There are steps they go through and checks and balances they need to witness, they need to observe on site. We never know when the inspectors are going to arrive and they come, they look at charts, they speak to residents and families. It’s quite a comprehensive process until they make that determination.”
The 544-bed facility is currently home to 480 residents. A wing of the facility has been unable to be opened as a result of an inability to fill staff positions. That space is being utilized as a transitional care unit operated by the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre.
Buckler said the organization is short about 60 personal support workers and has had some struggles reaching a full complement of registered nurses and registered practical nurses.
The remaining compliance order revolves around documentation, an area that Buckler acknowledged is a work in progress.
“We’ve really tried to streamline our processes around that. We’ve tried to create more checklists as opposed to write things,” Buckler said.
“We’ve tried to avoid duplication. We’ve streamlined our care plans a lot to make sure people don’t have to write in two or three things. There’s still some work to do there. We know what the improvements are that are required and a couple of the charts the inspectors reviewed still had some work to do on care planning and documentation.”
An issue raised in a November inspection, where one resident was found to have been waiting for referral for an occupational therapy assessment after falling.
Facility staff attempted to refer the matter to the contracted providers by using a paper form instead of an electronic system, leading to the documentation likely being lost and more than two months elapsing since the resident’s second fall.
Buckler said that case is an example of the importance of communicating process changes to hundreds of employees.
“Sometimes those things happen as we’re making a change. The paper process was what was usual for the staff. They did what they knew,” she said.
“When we implement the change we need to make sure we communicate broadly and we have to communicate more than once. This was a one-time situation where a staff member did the right thing that they thought, that they weren’t aware of the change in process.”
