Getting vaccinated is critical to protecting yourself, your loved ones and our most vulnerable Ontarians from COVID-19. Each person vaccinated brings us one step closer to eliminating COVID-19 from our long-term care homes and our communities.
That’s why we’re working to build vaccine confidence — and where you come in. People are more likely to listen to someone they know and trust. You can help boost vaccination rates by engaging with your colleagues and community on vaccine safety.
The rapid rise and severity of COVID-19 cases in long-term care (LTC) has led to the urgent redeployment of health professionals to LTC environments. The Ontario COVID-19 Education Task Force (powered by Michener Institute of Education at UHN), in partnership with the Ontario Centres for Learning, Research and Innovation in Long-Term Care (CLRI) and the Baycrest Centre for Education, developed an LTC section on covidcarelearning.ca, an online learning management system to support upskilling for health-care workers being redeployed for COVID-19 care.
Please share this resource with incoming team members who are new to the LTC environment. These materials facilitate redeployment to a team-based model of care quickly and safely in LTC homes, and support team members to bridge their knowledge from current practice to the requirements to care for COVID-19 and other residents.
Project ECHO Care of the Elderly is a telehealth, case-based learning program run by Baycrest and North East Specialized Geriatric Centre (NESGC) to enhance the quality of care to LTC residents by improving the knowledge and skills of their primary care providers. This session focuses on building resiliency in LTC team members during COVID-19.
These are unprecedented times that put extra pressure on LTC homes and team members. These recorded sessions will help those working in LTC build resiliency and strengthen their LTC teams.
This module will help improve your understanding of polypharmacy and provide you with an approach for deprescribing. You will learn how polypharmacy develops over time, as well as how to recognize common drug-induced symptoms and prescribing cascades. Throughout the module, you will apply an approach for deprescribing to a fictional case.
Online tools for optimizing seniors’ medication use
Deprescribing is the planned and supervised process of reducing or stopping a medication that may be causing harm or no longer be of benefit.
The Bruyère Deprescribing Guidelines Research Team, a partner of Ontario CLRI, have created bilingual tools and resources to help health-care professionals and residents make shared decisions on whether or not a medication is still the right fit:
Studies on the making of the guidelines and algorithms have been published in Canadian Family Physician. The studies detail the process of gathering evidence and consulting primary care professionals for developing, reviewing and endorsing the guidelines.
Canadian Family Physician May 2018, 64 (5) 339-351;
Canadian Family Physician January 2018, 64 (1) 17-27;
Canadian Family Physician November 2017, 63 (11) 832-843;
Canadian Family Physician May 2017, 63 (5) 354-364;
Deprescribing.org was created by Dr. Barbara Farrell and Dr. Cara Tannenbaum a pharmacist and physician respectively who are concerned with the rising use of medications in the aging population.
The development of the algorithms was supported by the Ontario Pharmacy Research Collaboration (OPEN) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).
Visit to learn more about deprescribing tools and resources.
Webinar – Shared Decision Making
This webinar highlights common elements of the deprescribing process and demonstrate approaches to engaging patients through shared decision-making.
Webinar – The Role of Community Pharmacists in Deprescribing
This webinar highlights research that explores how pharmacists practicing in community settings can embrace their roles as key partners in deprescribing as one strategy for tackling the global problem of medication-related harm.
Webinar – Alternative Supports for Deprescribing from Antidepressants
This webinar discusses how major depression can be difficult to treat, and how clinicians can sometimes feel constrained in choices of how to treat it (i.e., medications vs talk therapy). Other modalities with strong supporting evidence are presented along with suggestions on how these can be integrated into a deprescribing decision tree.
Article – What’s In Your Medicine Cabinet?
This article originally appeared in AdvantAge Ontario and discusses deprescribing for LTC homes.
Supported by:
This webinar provides practical insights and suggestions to collaboratively work with long-term care residents living with chronic conditions, their interprofessional team, and family member care partners.
This webinar was offered by the Ontario CLRI hosted at the Schlegel-UW Research Institute for Aging and was presented on February 27, 2018.
Dr. George Heckman graduated in 1991 Doctor of Medicine at University of Toronto, Ontario Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, with specialist certification in Internal Medicine (1999) and Geriatric Medicine Master of Science (Health Research Methodology, McMaster University in 2006). He holds a Schlegel Research Chair in Geriatric Medicine and is presently an Associate Professor with the department of Public Health and Health Systems at the University of Waterloo as well as an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at McMaster University. Research interests include management of heart failure in long term care and other frail seniors, primary care management of dementia, home care safety and vascular aging.
GeriMedRisk is an interdisciplinary telemedicine consultation and education service for doctors, nurse practitioners and pharmacists in Ontario. Using telephone and eConsult, clinicians receive a coordinated response to questions regarding optimizing medications, mental health and comorbidities in older adult patients from a team of geriatric specialists and pharmacists. GeriMedRisk is a not-for-profit service for clinicians.