Enhancing clinical awareness for healthier communities

“Clinical care is sometimes overlooked,” said world-renowned Wound Clinical Nurse Consultant from Uniting NSW & ACT, Hayley Ryan, at the commencement of DCM Institute’s webinar on Clinical Awareness for Village Managers. 

Held on Tuesday and Thursday this week, this webinar series was attended by more than 150 village professionals who logged on to DCM Institute’s Knowledge Centre to hear from experts Hayley Ryan, Uniting and Tara Wills from Ryman Healthcare. 

 In setting the tone for why clinical awareness is important for village professionals, Hayley commented: “close to 85,000 older adults require attendance by an ambulance every year. That’s 278 per 1000 people over the age of 65.” 

 In her presentation, Hayley shared how it is not the role of the Village Manager to be a clinician, rather with some simple discipline and awareness training, it is possible to be proactive with residents and their ageing journey in our communities. 

 Tara emphasised something simple as building rapport with residents as a great first step to being aware of a resident’s changing health needs. 

 “Say hi, how are you going? Get familiar with them so that when you see them in the cafe or when you do see them out and about, you can notice those changes, even if they’re only subtle little changes because you build the rapport with people. The more you build that rapport, the more obviously you’re going to notice things and they’ll feel more confident to come and tell you.” 

STOP WATCH 

Hayley spoke of the ‘STOP AND WATCH tool’.  This tool a very simple, systemised approach to early detection of anyone who’s deteriorating.. In setting out this tool, Hayley talked through:

• ‘S’ , you need to think about what seems different with this person than the norm.  
• ‘T’ Are they having issues with talking or are they communicating less?  
• ‘O’ Do they need more help all of a sudden?  
• ‘P’ Is there more pain? 

A copy of this tool will be available in the DCM Institute Resource Bank for participants.

Do you have a First Aid Certificate? 

Interestingly, a poll of Village Professionals who attended the webinar suggests that 4 out of 5 Managers has a First Aid Certificate. 

Hayley advocated the importance of all village professionals having their First Aid Certificate. “whilst it’s not legislative, what we know is that it is in fact best practice. And I would encourage everybody online if you don’t have your first aid, think about getting it.” 

For more information 

DCM Institute’s webinar series on Home Care in Retirement Living, and Clinical Awareness for Village Managers are in response to Village Professionals around Australia indicating they need information and support on how to best respond to the changing care needs of their residents.  

For more information contact the DCM Institute team: dcmi@thedcmgroup.com.au.