Issue:
Slips, trips and falls are a major source of work disability in Ontario and a substantial portion of the injuries experienced in health care. The Public Services Health & Safety Association (PSHSA) has developed a novel program to work with organizations in the long-term care sector to reduce slips, trips and falls. The proposed research is a randomized controlled field trial of the Employee Participation in Change Program (EPIC). EPIC seeks to develop both leadership and employee change teams to support broad-based organizational change and quality improvement focused on the prevention of slips, trips and falls – both an employee safety and older adult safety issue. The proposed project is designed to collect data from 5 facilities who participate and 5 control facilities over the year.
Objectives:
• To assess effectiveness of EPIC on the reduction of severe injuries related to slips, trips and falls.
• To assess whether EPIC results in changes to the internal responsibility system.
• To assess the economic benefits and costs of the EPIC Program.
Anticipated Results:
The results of this research are directly relevant to all stakeholders in Ontario. The question of how to change internal responsibilities is a major issue and to demonstrate a best practice will go a long way to support injury reduction broadly. Certainly a successful intervention will directly benefit the long-term care sector. This will be an active collaboration with PSHSA who will implement the EPIC program and with the Ontario Long-Term Care Association who will help with recruitment and dissemination of results. We also will work with the Workplace Safety & Insurance Board and the Ministry of Labour to obtain data to augment the survey data.
Investigators:
Ben Amick, Dwayne Van Eerd, Sheilah Hogg-Johnson, Cam Mustard, Lynda Robson, Emile Tompa, Trevor King
