
Polypharmacy and Deprescribing

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 the COVID-19 pandemic.
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.
Older adults living in long-term care (LTC) homes often take many medications each day – sometimes this is not necessary and can even be harmful. Deprescribing is the planned and supervised process of reducing doses or stopping medications.
Decisions about medications for residents are best made when people work together with their health-care providers. Everyone in an LTC resident’s care team can help make medication-related care safe and effective.
The Bruyère Deprescribing Research Team worked with stakeholders across Ontario’s LTC sector to identify four behaviours and develop supporting tools that help deprescribing become a part of the culture of care. Click on the links in each behaviour to access tools such as process guides, infographics, cue cards and videos:
The Bruyère Deprescribing Research Team is a partner of Ontario CLRI at Bruyère. For more information about how these behaviours were identified, read the Deprescribing in LTC report.
Deprescribing.org houses deprescribing guidelines and other resources developed by Dr. Barbara Farrell and Dr. Lisa McCarthy’s research team at the Bruyere Research Institute (Ottawa). Barbara and Lisa are pharmacists who work with older people and are concerned about the risks associated with medications in this population.
To learn more about their work visit deprescribing.org.
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.