Application of Practice Guideline: Working with Unregulated Care Providers

Mrs. Shanwell is the Director of Care for a small 22 bed retirement home in a small community in the greater Toronto area. This is an elite private retirement home with a minimum monthly fee of $10,000 CDN to stay there. The fees cover only rent, food, housekeeping and some social items.

Recently in the past 4 months, 60% of the residents have been requiring more support with activities of daily living as well as medication administration. Up until now, the local health integrated network had supported them with twice a week up to 2 hours a week of UCP support. This has been significantly less than what is needed to keep the residents safe. The community coordinator assigned to the home has stated that they do not qualify for any more support. The residents and families have asked the company to hire in-house UCP support.

Mrs. Shanwell's boss Mrs. Willow the administrator and regional supervisor have asked Mrs. Shanwell to meet today. In this meeting, Mrs. Willow tells Mrs. Shanwell that they will begin hiring "loving and caring people" to be in house trained as UCP's on the job. Mrs. Willow states that Mrs. Shanwell will delegate medication administration, wound care and personal care to the UCP's as they become hired. Mrs. Shanwell feels very uneasy about this and disagrees with Mrs. Willow. Mrs. Shanwell is told that she will implement this or be let go from her job.

Now its time for you to use your Nursing Process!

Assess: What are the main problems in this situation?

Diagnosis/Problem: Which one is the most severe or problematic?

Planning: What is your goal for fixing the most priority problem?

Intervention: What ACTIONS can you do to help fix the priority problem?