The Founders’ Bursary Awards are awarded to the children of Bethany employees that recognize a student’s excellence in scholastic achievement, outstanding leadership, and a commitment to the community.
Click on the link below for more information and an application form.
Summer is Survey Season
Surveys are an important tool to help healthcare providers understand the lived experience of those they serve. Every two years, Bethany conducts internal surveys as part of the organization’s continuous quality improvement strategy. This summer resident, tenant and family surveys will be completed over a four week period in July and August. In addition, the Health Quality Council of Alberta (HQCA) is conducting Resident and Family Experience surveys in our Designated Supportive Living (DSL) programs at Bethany Sylvan Lake and Bethany Didsbury.
Bethany values its partnership with the HQCA. The HQCA regularly invites Bethany to provide input on their survey methodology, tool and reporting style. After their last survey in 2017, the HQCA requested a follow-up meeting with Bethany leadership to learn more about how the care and services provided resulted in such positive family experiences. To learn more about the HQCA and its surveys, you can click on the following link: https://hqca.ca/surveys/
There are two key reasons we conduct surveys: (1) to engage residents, tenants and families in a conversation about their stay and, (2) to collect meaningful and useful survey data. To support the collection of this information, Bethany’s resident surveys are completed via in-person interviews by a group of specially trained volunteers using a standardized process and survey tool approved by Accreditation Canada. Families will receive a paper copy of their survey in the mail.
Bethany uses both our internal and HQCA survey results to set business priorities and inform decision-making regarding delivery of care and services. In other words, it helps us understand what we are doing well and what changes are required to ensure optimal quality of life for those we serve. Most importantly, listening to our residents, tenants and families ensures they have a voice and allows us to work together to ensure they have the best possible experience during their time with us.
“Alone, we can do so little; together, we can do so much” – Helen Keller
If you have any feedback, questions or ideas you would like to share, I welcome you to send them to me at: dana.penner@bethanyseniors.com
Regards,
— Dana
Stay up-to-date on Bethany’s progress with our July/August newsletter!
Click Here to view the PDF version.
Creating New Knowledge Through Research
As part of our commitment to Vision 2020, it is important that we continue to innovate in developing and improving the programs and services that we offer. One of the ways that we do this is through Clinical Research. Research opportunities play a very important role in how we continue to challenge what we do and explore new opportunities to improve. Research aims to find better ways to prevent and treat disease and the care and treatment of those we serve.
Each research project represents a collaborative partnership that Bethany communities support directly with participation or indirectly in guiding or leading the focus of research activities. These research partnerships provide us with ongoing opportunities to examine how and what we do and to identify possibilities for enhancing or improving our services and the care we provide.
I would like to share a few research projects that Bethany teams are currently involved in.
Being involved in research projects presents many opportunities for Bethany but is not possible without the support and involvement of Bethany leaders and staff. To those of you who are participating in these studies and to those of you who have done so in the past, I thank you for your support and contributions to this important work as we live into our mission of Creating Caring Communities.
As always, I welcome any ideas or suggestions you may have. Please send them to me at nancy.hughes@bethanyseniors.com.
Regards,
Nancy
Team Work Equals Success
It was a proud moment in Canada as the Raptors won the NBA championship for the first time Thursday night. Even though I’m not normally a basketball fan, I was hooked on watching each game during this series. One thing I noted about this final game, it was not about any one individual but the incredible team work with 5 players achieving 20 or more points. It reminds me of how an organization should operate, with every person contributing to the overall success.
Each staff member along the way, can have a positive impact on the people we serve here at Bethany. It could be the extra care put into helping a resident, the additional effort used in maintaining a clean facility, or the careful consideration about how we use our resources. I would encourage us all to go the extra mile in our daily roles and take pride in the quality of work we produce. Like the Toronto Raptors, where their achievement was not only a result of the players on the court but also the countless people behind the scenes, here at Bethany, each one of you is a necessary link in the chain to achieving our mission, vision, and values.
Thank you for how you individually contribute to Bethany’s Creating Caring Communities.
Please contact me with your questions or comments at Doreen.Lee@bethanyseniors.com
Regards,
— Doreen
When Vulnerability Creates Opportunity
he new Alberta Continuing Care Facility Directory will be launched on June 11th. The intent of the directory is to assist Albertans in making informed decisions about publicly funded continuing care living options for themselves or others.
The directory will provide important information about the care and services available at long-term care (LTC) and designated supportive living (DSL) facilities in our province. This information includes site photographs, type(s) of programming and status of our Resident and Family Councils as well as a list of unique services and amenities such as music therapy, a tropical atrium and/or bistro.
It will also include information on the performance of the facility. The Accommodation and Continuing Care Health Services (CCHS) Standards audit results will be posted; as well as the Health Quality Council of Alberta (HQCA) survey ranking results for food services and overall satisfaction. In addition, there will be a link to each site’s Public 9 Quality Indicators as provided by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI).
Having all of this information publicly available and easily accessible has the potential to make us feel a bit vulnerable. We may wonder how the public will interpret the “numbers”. Will they understand the context or story behind them? How will they influence their decision to choose a Bethany facility as their new home? How will we compare to other organizations’ facilities?
“Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.” – Brene Brown
In spite of feeling somewhat vulnerable, I believe this directory presents us with great opportunity. It allows us to showcase our beautiful care centers and the excellent work being done by our staff, volunteers and community partners to provide high-quality care and services through ongoing continuous improvement. When prospective residents or families visit the website and ask us questions, we can engage them in a conversation about our many quality improvement initiatives and invite them to provide feedback and share their ideas for innovative service improvements.
On June 11th, I invite you to visit the Alberta Health Services website and view the new directory under the Continuing Care page: www.albertahealthservices.ca. Becoming familiar with the information provided about your site will help prepare you to tell our Bethany story behind the numbers!
If you have any feedback, questions or ideas you would like to share, I welcome you to send them to me at dana.penner@bethanyseniors.com
Regards,
—Dana
Remember Rodney Dangerfield and his famous catchphrase “I don’t get no respect”? It can be very frustrating when you feel disrespected, and hard to change because respect is something you cannot demand or expect from others. Respect is a core value at Bethany, but what exactly is respect?
Respect is series of actions that you show to someone else to build and maintain a relationship. So what does that really mean? It’s those positive feelings or actions you demonstrate to others. It is treating someone so that they feel important or that you hold them in high esteem or regard. Respect can convey a sense of admiration for another, and is demonstrated by exhibiting care, concern, and consideration for their feelings.
There are several things you can do to show respect for others:
Listen – this is always on the top of the list. People want to be heard and using your active listening skills to really listen to someone will show you respect their ideas and opinions.
Behave in a way that is appropriate to them – show compassion for their feelings and make sure you do not speak or act in a way that makes them uncomfortable (this can be very different from person to person).
Show integrity – do the right thing, always. And that means doing the right thing even when no one is looking.
What does respect look like at Bethany? Respect could be as simple as:
Building respect can take time, but losing it takes seconds. Once lost, respect can be difficult to regain. With this in mind, it only makes sense to make showing respect a priority.
If you have any questions, or would simply like to share your ideas, please contact me directly at lisa.watson@bethanyseniors.com.
Kind regards,
– Lisa
Stay up-to-date on Bethany’s progress with our May/June newsletter! From our 2nd Annual Bethany Service Excellence Recognition Awards to our site-wide celebrations during NAOSH and Mental Health week, you’ll find it here in the latest issue of Update. Click Here to view the PDF version.
Just Culture
A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of attending a presentation on Just Culture. The presentation was given by Dr. Ward Flemons, a member of the Health Quality Council of Alberta and a key thought leader in this area. It is important to note that Just Culture is something that Bethany will be working on over the coming year so this presentation was very helpful.
Just Culture is a concept that has longstanding origins in the Aviation industry but is relatively new to healthcare. In the healthcare context, a Just Culture is a learning culture that is constantly improving and oriented toward patient/resident safety. It is a culture where healthcare workers and residents or family members feel comfortable to report errors and threats to patient/resident safety. This information is then used to learn and make changes to the system to improve resident safety. A Just Culture fosters an atmosphere of trust where people feel safe discussing quality and safety concerns without fear of blame. When something does go wrong with patient/resident care, healthcare workers will be supported and treated fairly. Other features of a Just Culture include creating a learning culture, designing safe systems and managing behavioral choices. It is important to note that a Just Culture is not a blame-free culture, as everyone is still held accountable for following policies and procedures, but it is through reporting and event analysis that the organization learns what is wrong, how it went wrong and how it can be prevented from happening again.
Don Norman, a leading researcher and author of “The Design of Everyday Things” says that when accidents happen we often blame the people involved and punish them with the idea that punishment will solve the problem. As he notes, “the problem is seldom the fault of an individual; it is the fault of the system. If we change people without changing the system, the problems will continue”. Creating a Just Culture requires a change in focus from blaming for errors and bad outcomes to the enhancement of system design and supporting the management of the choices of employees.
A Just Culture improves patient/resident safety by empowering employees to proactively monitor the workplace and participate in safety efforts in the work environment. Improving patient/resident safety reduces risk by its focus on managing human behaviors and redesigning systems. In a Just Culture, both the organization and its employees are held accountable while focusing on risk, systems design, human behavior and patient/resident safety. I look forward to working with all of you as we embark on this important work over the next year.
As always, I welcome any ideas or suggestions you may have. Please send them to me at nancy.hughes@bethanyseniors.com.
Regards,
— Nancy
First Day Questions
Do you remember your first day of work at Bethany? Most of us, on our first day at a new job, feel a lot of excitement mixed with a little bit of anxiety. (Did I set my alarm early enough? What will the people on my team be like? How am I going to remember all these acronyms!?)
We have a new employee, Greg Hovdebo, joining the Foundation this week as our Senior Development Officer. Having a new person join our team is fantastic for all kinds of reasons.
First and foremost, we have lots of work to do to engage donors in Bethany’s mission, so having more one more pair of hands on deck will make a big difference in our ability to attract donations to the important work that each of you do. I also know that bringing someone onto our team with skills that are different than the ones we already have will make our team even stronger.
One of the best things I think a new employee does is ask a lot of questions. Each new Bethany employee brings a fresh way of looking at what we do and the ways we do it. Sometimes (hopefully!) they’ll even ask ‘why’ we do something the way we do. That gives us a chance to take a fresh look as well. It’s easy to get stuck in ‘well, that’s just the way we’ve always done it’ mode. A new employee’s questions can help us break out of that way of thinking.
Questions can lead to new solutions for old problems. Sometimes we forget to take the time to be curious in the same way our new employees are when they show up for their first days and weeks on the job.
Whether you’re a relatively new employee at Bethany, or someone who’s been here for years, I hope you stay curious and always feel comfortable asking questions. Often, they lead to better answers!
Have a great week. Thanks for everything you do,
— Gail