A message from Carole Estabrooks
TREC's Scientific Director
On behalf of the TREC team, I would like to extend a warm thank you to all for your ongoing support of TREC and for your major contributions to transformative change in the residential LTC system this past year. As you will see in this newsletter, we have had another exciting and successful year. As I look back on it, I am amazed by how much has been accomplished and how much is still to be accomplished. As many of you know, in addition to the regular research and implementation activities, TREC has been working diligently behind the scenes to move to a more sustainable business model that would stabilize the core functions. We are making progress but we have some distance to go yet. You will hear more in the upcoming months as we work with our small team of advisors on this. You may also be noticing an “up-tick” in communication activity, especially on social media. This is part of a deliberate strategy “to get the word out” and you will see more activity in 2019. We will be continuing our now popular webinar series in 2019, completing our clinical trials, working hard on the SALTY "adding years to life” team, launching new studies as grants come in (fingers crossed) and working to both broaden and deepen relationships with our various partner groups. We will also be focusing on recruiting greater numbers of trainees at all levels – they are our future.
I would like to ask us all to remember and have compassion for the many individuals for whom this is a challenging season. And I wish all TREC team members and associates scattered across Canada and the world a peaceful and restorative holiday season.
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Welcome to our
New TREC Staff
Before our year in review we would like to welcome our three new TREC Data Analysts.
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Leo Wang joins TREC as a Data Analyst in the Data Unit. Leo has particular interests in improving the quality of care with his educational background in statistics and long-term care insurance. He is now working to contribute to quality of life for older adults and quality of work life for care providers.
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Fangfang Fu joins TREC as a Data Analyst in the Data Unit. Fangfang is looking to support the TREC team with her educational background in statistics and skills related to data.
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Moses Kim joins TREC as a Data Analyst in the Data Unit. Along with his part-time work with the Data Unit Moses is currently working on his PhD in statistics at the University of Alberta.
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And now our
TREC Year in Review
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We hosted
TMS Summits and Frontline Feedback
Continuing our efforts in knowledge translation, we hosted Regional Summits in Alberta, British Columbia and Manitoba in May - June 2018. The six Regional Summits focused on the data findings of the last wave of data collection (September - December 2017) of the TREC Measurement System (TMS) Project. We shared the findings with facility representatives, decision makers and key stakeholders. Attendees had an opportunity to share and discuss strategies to make positive changes in their facilities and the long-term care sector. After our successful Regional Summits, the TMS Project team also returned to the participating facilities to share the findings with the frontline staff such as care aides in May - July 2018. Thank you all for coming out to the events and making them a success!
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We hosted
SCOPE Learning Congresses in AB and BC
SCOPE (Safer Care for Older Persons [in Residential] Environments) held its first set of Leaning Congresses in May. Teams from 31 long-term care facilities came together in four regions across Alberta and British Columbia. With each team led by a care aide, they learned the basics of Quality Improvement and were assisted by the Quality Team to help finalize their chosen topic and put together a working plan for Action Period 1 (May - September 2018).
The Quality Team supported the teams throughout the summer, both through regular telephone calls and face-to-face visits. The second set of Learning Congresses in September saw the teams meet again to enthusiastically present their ongoing work and describe their achievements in improving the lives of their residents.
With preparations in progress for Learning Congress 3 in January 2019 we are looking forward to re-connecting with everyone again - learning about their challenges and celebrating their successes.
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Congratulations
SCOPE MB on their Health Innovation Award
The seven Manitoba SCOPE Pilot teams were honoured on December 3rd 2018 with the Health Innovation Award for Patient-Centred Care by Manitoba Health, Seniors and Active Living. The award recognizes "an initative that directly resulted in positive improvements to processes, clinical approaches, and the culture of patient-centred care in front-line services." The teams were selected for this award due to their accomplishments in improving resident care in the areas of mobility, pain, and responsive behaviours in the 2017 Manitoba SCOPE initiative. The teams were presented with an award certificate from Health Minister Cameron Friesen.
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INFORM is out of the field
The Improving Nursing Home Care through Feedback on PerfRMance Data ( INFORM) intervention is out of the field and our researchers are hard at work analyzing the data. So far preliminary results are promising and we look forward to sharing the results with you in the future. |
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We raised money as
We Walked for Alzheimer's
With our cool new green TREC t-shirts and our walking shoes on, we walked to raise money for the Alzheimer Society of Canada. Thank you to everyone who came out to walk and to those who donated to our team!
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TREC On Ice
In 2018, TREC staff learned to curl! We look forward to challenging our Investigators in February 2019 before the Investigator Meeting. See our photo album below.
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We welcomed two new
ISAC Members
The TREC International Scientific Advisory Committee (ISAC) welcomed two new members in 2018. Susan Mitchell (Harvard Medical School) and Bill Gahli (University of Calgary). In addition to the two members ISAC had a highly positive meeting in early November. Learn more about ISAC and TREC governance here.
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TREC Webinar Series
In 2018, we launched the TREC Webinar Series in order to share our findings and projects directly with our stakeholders. So far, the webinar has been met with very positive reception and our audience continues to grow. For our September webinar, we reached 55 unique audience members. TREC would like to thank everyone for taking the time to attend our webinars as well as our Investigators for presenting. We look forward to a full slate of webinars in 2019.
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Our Twitter has over 1200 followers!
We are very excited to have reached the 1200 follower mark. We regularly tweet about new research in nursing home research, research translation science, and about TREC news and events. Follow us on Twitter to stay up to date.
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