Restorative Care Program opens at NHH - New post-acute care option for local patients focused on returning home, but not yet well enough to do so

A new Restorative Care Program opened at Northumberland Hills Hospital (NHH) on Tuesday, March 1st, specially designed to help local patients rebuild their strength and return home safely following an acute illness, injury or de-conditioning.

A holistic, patient-centred program, Restorative Care offers adult patients a customized care plan that:

• focuses on health, not illness;
• fosters motivation;
• maximizes functional ability to build individual independence; and
• connects patients and their family to the community support service network that may be necessary to achieve the transition home.

Innovative in its bringing together of the respective strengths of an inter-professional team of health care providers, Restorative Care addresses each patient’s unique physical, emotional and social health needs through specialized nursing care, physiotherapy, recreational therapy, occupational therapy and speech language therapy. A hospital-based Case Manager from the Central East Community Care Access Centre
(CECCAC) is an important part of this inter-professional team of supports, serving to navigate and liaise with the community resources necessary to achieve the transition home.

For west Northumberland, NHH’s new Restorative Care Program represents a welcome new option for those whose independence has not yet returned to the same level it was prior to their acute hospital stay. As a result of the enhanced therapies now available, more patients will be empowered to return safely home. Functional abilities will be maximized, permitting patients to live independently at their highest possible level, with the declines (physical and cognitive) that can occur in patients with prolonged acute hospital stays minimized. Considerable improvements to discharge planning--as evidenced by enhanced communication with the family and better, earlier linkages with community service providers--will serve to smooth the discharge process and increase patient satisfaction.

For the hospital, the primary benefit of the new Restorative Care program is the ability it brings to improve patient care, specifically as it relates to the impact on reducing the continued challenge of ALC. An average of approximately 25 per cent (one in four) of NHH’s acute patient beds have typically been occupied by ALC patients in recent years a level that the health care system has long identified as unsustainable. The 2011/12 ALC target identified by the Central East Local Health Integration Network (CE LHIN) is considerably lower at 16.8 per cent. For NHH, the new Restorative Care program, supported by the CE LHIN, is essential to preserving accessibility to acute care beds and, by extension, meeting the hospital’s accountability to the LHIN.

First announced as part of the hospital’s comprehensive Alternative Level of Care (ALC) strategy in August 2010, Restorative Care is a new patient care model for NHH. The approach is relatively new on the provincial landscape as well, with only a handful of similar programs in place. As such, the supporting policies and processes had to be built by the NHH team through extensive research, the use of LEAN methodologies and a strong focus on inter-professional and gerontological best practices.

The 16-bed unit consists of seven beds formerly designated for Complex Continuing Care and nine new Restorative beds, with the majority of the beds co-located with the interim-Long Term Care Unit on the hospital’s main level.

Robert Biron, NHH President and CEO, said: “Restorative Care is an exciting new tool that will help us do two things: assist patients in their effort to return safely home and, at the same time, minimize ALC numbers that threaten accessibility to our acute care beds. Together with the other investments that make up our overall ALC strategy I’m confident that we are on the right path to maintaining accessibility to our acute care services while meeting the needs of our community.”

Said CE LHIN CEO Deborah Hammons: “NHH’s new Restorative Care program represents another in a series of significant investments the Central East LHIN is making across the LHIN to improve access to care and help individuals return home safely after their hospital stay. We congratulate the NHH team on completing this important step in their comprehensive ALC strategy.”

For more information, contact Jennifer Gillard at 905-377-7757 or
jgillard@nhh.ca.

About Northumberland Hills Hospital – The Northumberland Hills Hospital (NHH) is located approximately 100 kilometres east of Toronto. The acute care hospital delivers a broad range of services, including emergency and intensive care, medical/surgical care, restorative/long-term care, rehabilitation, palliative care and obstetrical care. A variety of ambulatory care clinics are also offered at NHH. In addition to these, NHH also sponsors a Community Mental Health Centre and an Assertive Community Treatment Team. The hospital serves the catchment area of west Northumberland County. A mixed urban and rural population of approximately 60,000 residents, west Northumberland comprises the Town of Cobourg, the Municipality of Port Hope and the townships of Hamilton, Cramahe and Alnwick/Haldimand. NHH employs close to 600 people and relies on the additional support provided by physicians and volunteers. NHH is an active member of the Central East LHIN. For more information, please visit www.nhh.ca.