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A cross-sectional survey assessing the preparedness of the long-term care sector to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario, Canada
BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic is a significant public health emergency that impacts all sectors of healthcare. The negative health outcomes for the COVID-19 infection have been most severe in the frail elderly dwelling in Canadian long-term care (LTC) homes. METHODS: An online cross-sectional su...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7578587/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33092541 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-020-01828-w |
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author | Siu, Henry Yu-Hin Kristof, Lorand Elston, Dawn Hafid, Abe Mather, Fred |
author_facet | Siu, Henry Yu-Hin Kristof, Lorand Elston, Dawn Hafid, Abe Mather, Fred |
author_sort | Siu, Henry Yu-Hin |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic is a significant public health emergency that impacts all sectors of healthcare. The negative health outcomes for the COVID-19 infection have been most severe in the frail elderly dwelling in Canadian long-term care (LTC) homes. METHODS: An online cross-sectional survey of Ontario LTC Clinicians working in LTC homes in Ontario Canada was conducted to provide the clinician perspective on the preparedness and engagement of the LTC sector during the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey questionnaire was developed in collaboration with the Ontario Long-Term Care Clinicians organization (OLTCC) and was distributed between March 30, 2020 to May 25, 2020. All registered members of the OLTCC and Nurse-led LTC Outreach Teams were invited to participate. The primary outcomes were: 1) the descriptive report of the screening measures implemented, communication and information received, and the preparation of the respondent’s LTC home to a potential COVID-19 outbreak; and 2) the level of agreement, as reported using a five-point Likert scale), to COVID-19 preparedness statements for the respondent’s LTC home was also assessed. RESULTS: The overall response rate was 54% (160/294). LTC homes implemented a wide range of important interventions (e.g. instituting established respiratory isolation protocols, active screening of new LTC admissions, increasing education on infection control processes, encouraging sick staff to take time off, etc). Ample communications pertinent to the pandemic were received from provincial LTC organizations, the government and public health officials. However, the feasibility of implementing public health recommendations, as well as the engagement of the LTC sector in pandemic planning were identified as areas of concern. Medical director status was associated with an increased knowledge of local implementation of interventions to mitigate COVID-19, as well as endorsing increased access to reliable COVID-19 information and resources to manage a potential COVID-19 outbreak in their LTC home. CONCLUSIONS: This study highlights the communication and implementation of recommendations in the Ontario LTC sector, despite some concerns regarding feasibility. Importantly, LTC clinician respondents clearly indicated that better engagement with LTC leaders is needed to plan a coordinated pandemic response. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Supplementary information accompanies this paper at 10.1186/s12877-020-01828-w. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7578587 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-75785872020-10-22 A cross-sectional survey assessing the preparedness of the long-term care sector to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario, Canada Siu, Henry Yu-Hin Kristof, Lorand Elston, Dawn Hafid, Abe Mather, Fred BMC Geriatr Research Article BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic is a significant public health emergency that impacts all sectors of healthcare. The negative health outcomes for the COVID-19 infection have been most severe in the frail elderly dwelling in Canadian long-term care (LTC) homes. METHODS: An online cross-sectional survey of Ontario LTC Clinicians working in LTC homes in Ontario Canada was conducted to provide the clinician perspective on the preparedness and engagement of the LTC sector during the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey questionnaire was developed in collaboration with the Ontario Long-Term Care Clinicians organization (OLTCC) and was distributed between March 30, 2020 to May 25, 2020. All registered members of the OLTCC and Nurse-led LTC Outreach Teams were invited to participate. The primary outcomes were: 1) the descriptive report of the screening measures implemented, communication and information received, and the preparation of the respondent’s LTC home to a potential COVID-19 outbreak; and 2) the level of agreement, as reported using a five-point Likert scale), to COVID-19 preparedness statements for the respondent’s LTC home was also assessed. RESULTS: The overall response rate was 54% (160/294). LTC homes implemented a wide range of important interventions (e.g. instituting established respiratory isolation protocols, active screening of new LTC admissions, increasing education on infection control processes, encouraging sick staff to take time off, etc). Ample communications pertinent to the pandemic were received from provincial LTC organizations, the government and public health officials. However, the feasibility of implementing public health recommendations, as well as the engagement of the LTC sector in pandemic planning were identified as areas of concern. Medical director status was associated with an increased knowledge of local implementation of interventions to mitigate COVID-19, as well as endorsing increased access to reliable COVID-19 information and resources to manage a potential COVID-19 outbreak in their LTC home. CONCLUSIONS: This study highlights the communication and implementation of recommendations in the Ontario LTC sector, despite some concerns regarding feasibility. Importantly, LTC clinician respondents clearly indicated that better engagement with LTC leaders is needed to plan a coordinated pandemic response. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Supplementary information accompanies this paper at 10.1186/s12877-020-01828-w. BioMed Central 2020-10-22 /pmc/articles/PMC7578587/ /pubmed/33092541 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-020-01828-w Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Siu, Henry Yu-Hin Kristof, Lorand Elston, Dawn Hafid, Abe Mather, Fred A cross-sectional survey assessing the preparedness of the long-term care sector to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario, Canada |
title | A cross-sectional survey assessing the preparedness of the long-term care sector to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario, Canada |
title_full | A cross-sectional survey assessing the preparedness of the long-term care sector to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario, Canada |
title_fullStr | A cross-sectional survey assessing the preparedness of the long-term care sector to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario, Canada |
title_full_unstemmed | A cross-sectional survey assessing the preparedness of the long-term care sector to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario, Canada |
title_short | A cross-sectional survey assessing the preparedness of the long-term care sector to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario, Canada |
title_sort | cross-sectional survey assessing the preparedness of the long-term care sector to respond to the covid-19 pandemic in ontario, canada |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7578587/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33092541 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12877-020-01828-w |
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