A new Think Research survey highlights how our Clinical Support Tools for Long-Term Care Program, including our COVID-19 tools and content library, deliver key benefits to the sector.

The results show how the tools increase staff confidence in decisions, improve delivery of evidence-based and resident-centred care, and strengthen information sharing among teams.

Clinical Support Tools (CSTs) cover common conditions and scenarios, including dementia, palliative and end-of-life, wound assessment, COPD, and hypoglycemia.

This past summer, we surveyed Ontario clients using CSTs, including our updated COVID-19 library, about their impact.

Results show widespread and key benefits from using CSTs:

  • 89 percent indicate improved ability to provide evidence-based care
  • 85 percent indicate improved ability to share resident information among their inter-professional teams
  • 81 percent indicate improvements in their ability to provide resident-centred care
  • 85 percent indicate increased their knowledge of the CST’s condition or presenting scenario

Use of these tools can drive major real-world impacts. For example, after adopting our wound assessment CST, one long-term care home in Ontario’s Niagara region saw a 47.8 percent decrease in residents experiencing wounds.

We also have a large library of COVID-19 content for long-term and retirement care, including resident and staff screening, to standardize your organization’s response while reducing high-risk variance and ensuring decisions align with emerging best-practice.

A 160-bed home in the GTA has utilized our COVID-19 screening CST over 1,200 times since the start of the pandemic to ensure comprehensive screening for residents and staff.

“The tools walk staff through a very clear checklist and set of questions. They can’t miss a step or forget anything because it’s right at their fingertips. The tools empower our nurses and staff with added confidence that they can easily get the answers they are looking for,” the home’s director says.

“When they go through the checklist and set of questions they can’t miss or forget a step or symptom. It’s straightforward. You eliminate the guesswork and minimize the window for error.”

You can find out more about our COVID-19 tools and content, and learn more about our Clinical Support Tools for Long-Term Care Program.