Yahoo Finance Windsor retirement home uses online tracking system
A Windsor retirement home owner says an online tracking system helps his residents stay safe and well cared for.
This comes after murder charges this week against a registered nurse working in nursing homes in southwestern Ontario raised the question about how something like this could have happened. A former Woodstock, Ont., nurse was charged with eight counts of first-degree murder in connection with the death of eight elderly patients.
Advocates for patients and for the elderly are asking questions about how we care for our most vulnerable people.
Mike Cardinal says an online recording system may have helped.
"PointClickCare is an online Cloud-based program where we have every individual entered into our system and so seamlessly right from the pharmacy to the nurse to the person, everything is being tracked," Cardinal, the owner of Cardinal Place told CBC Windsor.
It can track medication, pain, blood pressure, blood sugar and many other things with the click of a button. Each resident has their own profile which is updated on a daily basis, depending on what happens throughout the day.
Cardinal Place has been using the system for nearly two years.
"With every changeover of the shift, just like counting cash at a McDonald's till, there might be a cashier and a manager personally looking to make sure both have counted the till properly," Cardinal said. "Same things happens with regards to medication. What medications are in that locked up drawer are counted at the beginning at the end of each shift, with the two nurses watching."
Cardinal says the system reduces the chance of human error.
"Right away it would flag it in the system that something is missing," Cardinal said. "You get around to client A that was supposed to have three pills but there was only two in the package, what went on? Like even the package is labelled too so it's really hard to do that kind of mistake without it being a big red flag."
A registered practical nurse at Cardinal Place says the system has helped her stay on top of her work, in the busy environment.
"So if I have to administer 1,700 medications to lets say Bill Crawford. I would go to the bin, find him, match the compliance package to the [PointClickCare system]. Once I've done that, I would go to the member personally, deliver the medication to them and then that's that. Once I do that, I go back to my PCC and check that yes, I have administered these medications," said Denise Hogg, a Registered Practical Nurse and the care team coordinator at Cardinal Place.
Cardinal also believes the system has preventative checks and balances in place.
"I could see where, someone could be saying 'Mrs. Murphy has a lot of pain, therefore I'm giving her extra pain medication,' but someone could take the opiate themselves," Hogg said. "But that would be caught on very quick because the next shift you would be saying, 'Well she's not in any pain. she's fine.' And if that keeps on happening, very quickly it would identify it, saying 'You only have pain when this person is working. What's going on?'"
