Your Rights and Safety

Your Rights
Your Safety

Your Rights

Riverview Health Centre respects the people we serve and their families.

While at Riverview Health Centre, you have the following rights:

The right to receive care and service that meets or exceeds established standards of practice.
- To receive your care from qualified and knowledgeable staff.
- To receive care consistent with your personal needs while promoting independence with self-care and choice in carrying out day-to-day activities, including selecting the clothing you wish to wear every day.
- To live in a safe and clean environment.
- To be treated as an individual with unique needs and preferences.
- To receive respectful and courteous care at all times.
- To be free of physical or chemical restraints unless assessed as necessary to provide protection from injury to yourself or others around you.
- To receive end of life care with dignity and comfort in the presence of your family or friends.
The right to confidentiality and privacy.
- To have your personal, financial and medical information kept confidential and shared only with individuals who have a ‘need to know’ this information to effectively carry out their roles.
- To have treatment and care administered with sensitivity and respect for privacy
- To communicate in private with any person without interference.
The right to information and freedom of expression.
- To be informed of any matters pertaining to your medical condition and choices of treatment.
- To be informed of the consequences of the decision or refusal of treatment.
- To have access to your personal health information.
- To participate in decisions regarding your plan of care.
- To make choices about types of recreational and spiritual activities to attend.
- To assign an advocate in the event that you are unable to express your care or financial decisions.
- To expect staff to identify themselves and the role they serve prior to care delivery.
- To own and display personal property within your private suite while adhering to safety requirements, policy and the rights of other Residents and Patients.
- To express concerns, opinions and recommendations without fear of discrimination or reprisal.
- To attend and actively participate in the long term care ‘Resident and Family Council’, if you are a resident of Riverview Health Centre.
The right to live free of abuse and harm.
- To live in an environment free of psychological, physical, financial or sexual abuse.
- To have any allegations of abuse investigated by Riverview Health Centre and/or the “Protection for Persons in Care Office” without fear of reprisal.

Your Safety

Riverview Health Centre is committed to keeping you safe

The Silver Spoons Dysphagia Management Program

Riverview Health Centre’s Interdisciplinary Dysphagia Team has developed a creative, comprehensive approach to prevent and successfully manage problems associated with dysphagia (or difficulty swallowing). By addressing dysphagia, the Team hopes to reduce the incidence of its harmful effects on health, including malnutrition, dehydration, choking and aspiration, which can lead to pneumonia. The Team is composed of a speech-language pathologist, a clinical dietitian, an occupational therapist and a nurse.

At Riverview, the admitting nurse screens each new patient or resident for swallowing problems. Those individuals who show signs of swallowing problems are assessed by the staff speech-language pathologist, who provides recommendations in consultation with the health care team.

Pink Silver Spoons Club decals are used to identify patients and residents with dysphagia. When appropriate, a Safe Swallowing Guide is prepared for an identified patient or resident. This guide provides individualized instructions to ensure safety and adequate nutritional intake at mealtimes.

All nurses and health care aides and anyone else involved in assisting patients/residents to eat (including family members) receive certification in the Silver Spoons Dysphagia Management Program (SSDMP). Self-study and an orientation in-service session provide an opportunity to learn about and practise safe feeding techniques. The purpose of the education program is to provide staff and other dining assistants with the knowledge they need to help prevent problems related to dysphagia.

Falls Management and Prevention Program At Riverview Health Centre

Falls occur among people of all ages, but most frequently affect older persons. Falls and related injuries result in profound human suffering and enormous health care costs.

One way to reduce the occurrence of falls is through the development of a fall prevention program. If we can predict who is at highest risk for falling, we can then take steps to prevent falls, or the injuries caused by them.

Riverview Health Centre (in conjunction with the Nursing Quality Improvement Committee and the Clinical Nurse Specialist), has made fall prevention and management one of its major focuses since the 1990’s. Our Fall Prevention Management Program has been revised and updated several times over the years to promote a systematic, formalized, interdisciplinary person-centered approach that focuses on risk assessment, use of environmental cues (falls decal), preventive interventions, staff and patient/resident/family education, clinical protocols and care plans, as well as quality monitoring. The goals of the program are to reduce the number of falls and their severity while acknowledging that as patients/residents strive to maintain their autonomy and independence in a least restraint environment. The occurrence of falls cannot be completely eradicated.

The Fall Prevention and Management program is introduced to staff at orientation, and all changes and updates are shared with staff in a timely way. The program is continually evaluated to determine its effectiveness and its appropriateness for the various patients/residents at Riverview Health Centre. Appropriate changes to the program are made in response to changing patient/resident situations, including various bed and chair exit alarm systems, the use of low to floor beds, and various new best practice initiatives, e.g., frequent rounding.