A trauma-informed approach in healthcare enhances patient outcomes, improves overall staff satisfaction, and promotes safety and dignity.

With this research-backed approach top of mind, Erin Kennedy wanted to make a difference at North Bay Regional Health Centre (NBRHC).

Erin's project adds a trauma-informed care concept to crisis intervention training – giving staff more tools for de-escalation and creating the safest environment possible.

By engaging senior leaders and including staff across the organization in training, this project is having a meaningful impact on staff, patients, and families.

On this episode, Erin shares the value of equipping staff with the skills to manage crises and one thing she wishes she learned sooner while building the project - something other healthcare organizations can learn from.

Quotables:

"Trauma-informed care is really about the understanding and the application of that understanding of how a person behaves and reacts today based on the influences and unique histories from their life." – E.K

"For our staff, when they understand these concepts, it's really a matter of putting judgment aside about why we think a behavior is happening and shifting the focus instead to creating a safe and comforting space for all of our patients." – E.K

"This project was about adding in the trauma-informed care concepts, so that staff would have more tools to create the safest environment possible." – E.K

"By focusing on de-escalation and what happens before an incident or crisis, again using those trauma-informed principles, in addition to the more traditional crisis intervention, the risk of occurrence is already reduced." – E.K

"We just want to make sure that all of our staff are safe, no matter where they work. Anybody who works with people is at risk of encountering somebody who might escalate, acknowledging that the frequency and severity might be different in each role." – E.K

"You could have the best curriculum and content, but it does no good if people aren't actually able to attend and receive the training." – E.K

Mentioned in this Episode:

• HIROC Safety Grants Program
• North Bay Regional Health Centre (NBRHC)

Access More Interviews with Healthcare Leaders at HIROC.com/podcast

Follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram, and listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your favourite podcasts.

Email us at Communications@HIROC.com.

An N95 Quantitative Fit Testing Machine is essential in supporting staff to avoid exposure to preventable diseases such as Tuberculosis – a prominent condition that Yukon Hospitals sees daily.

It was time for change at Yukon Hospitals as they had only one fit testing machine to provide mask fittings across three different hospitals. This gap meant staff were at times unable to work in high-risk areas and situations until getting properly fitted.

Lindsey Page, Keith Welch, and Lisa De Panfilis were determined to tackle this safety issue, and with the help of a HIROC Cultivate Safety Grant, a new N95 Fit Testing Machine was procured.

On this episode, we hear about the far-reaching impact of their new machine and advice to those in healthcare on filling a gap in care.

We also learn about another project that received a HIROC Cultivate Safety Grant, their Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) project which really helped move the needle in terms of staff wellbeing and retention.

Quotables:

• "We're quite proud of our First Nations Liaison Program and our workers up here." K.W.
• "I often feel like a mechanic over an engine who puts his hand back asking for the right tools. So having other people within the hospital and facility who know how to ask for these tools and get these resources are beyond important." – K.W.
• "Sometimes you discover along the way what you thought you needed wasn't necessarily the case." – L.P.
• "When you trust yourself and you have an effective team that supports each other, I think you can reach for something that is authentically good." – K.W.
• "Wishing is not enough. But moving forward in a kind and purposeful fashion allows us to make change." – T.H.
• "We often talk about as a team how being in the business of healthcare, helping people stay well is how we can deliver our mission of safe, quality care." – L.D.P.
• "It really is heart work. And it also impacts culture." - L.D.P.
• "Thinking about safety culture, how can we openly talk about challenges we are dealing with when we respond to a critical incident?" – L.D.P.
• "It's about understanding, it's about discovery, it's about trying to talk about things that we don't always talk about." - T.H.

Mentioned in this Episode:

• Yukon Hospitals
• HIROC Safety Grants Program

Access More Interviews with Healthcare Leaders at HIROC.com/podcast

Follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram, and listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your favourite podcasts.

Email us at Communications@HIROC.com.

Alberta Health Services' Diana Choma, Clinical Safety Leader and Kelly Chrunik, Clinical Informatics Lead, Child Health, wanted to ensure patients were getting the right care, at the right time, in the right place. They took a deep dive into why they were seeing a delayed reaction in patient deterioration events as a trend provincially.

This deep dive led to the inception of their project, which was to analyze the metrics in early warning systems to improve patient outcomes. The project received support from HIROC's Safety Grants Program.

On the third episode of Share Scale Repeat, Kelly and Diana walk us through the actions they took in the four education cycles, the results from their project, and share advice for healthcare organizations on actioning a new early warning system.

Quotables:

"If staff don't know what to do when an alert fires, the system just becomes noise instead of a safety net. It's really important for institutions to have a protocol in place and socialize this, ensuring they are accessible and ingrained in their everyday safety culture." – K.C

"When it comes to a tool like this, it's not taking away your ability to critical think and it's not there to tell you what you can and can't do. It's there to be a decision support tool for you. It enhances, doesn't replace." – D.C

"Personally, I'm driven by the belief that every interaction is an opportunity to make a positive impact whether that's on patients, colleagues, or the healthcare system as a whole. I think it matters to problem solve together with different professionals." – D.C

"In this project, we had very strong support from our project sponsor. Some days when the tasks felt like it was unreachable…and didn't quite feel like we may reach the finish line, we would check in with our sponsor and have that fire reignited and just that reminder of what we're doing is to support our front-line staff, support patient safety, and hopefully improve patient outcomes." – K.C

Mentioned in this Episode:

· Alberta Health Services

· HIROC

Access more interviews with healthcare leaders at HIROC.com/podcast

Follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram, and listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your favourite podcasts.