Sharps Exchange Partnership with local pharmacy and clients

Summary

Many of our seniors are frail, with mobility challenges and cannot dispose of sharps safely. Instead, they leave them in the open or in garbage bags, creating an unsafe environment that could lead not just to painful pin pricks but to more serious consequences, even causing death. In an effort to increase safety in the home, connections to seniors’ pharmacy and mobility support, Lumacare created a partnership with the local Shopper’s Drug Mart. Implementation begins with the Client Care Coordinators identifying the need for this partnership with the senior based on a standardized assessment, connecting them to the pharmacy to have the sharps container delivered, installed and disposed appropriately and arrange for the program to begin between the client and the pharmacy. It is believed that this partnership allows for clients to create a deeper connection to their local pharmacy, increases their efficiency for less mobile seniors, reduces caregiver stress, ensures the safety of themselves and any caregivers entering the home and allows for the medical care to remain as comprehensive and safe as possible. To date, 12 clients have been connected to this initiative in our local catchment area. Program Service Workers, informal caregivers and clients report feeling safer, policies have been created for Lumacare Services, and greater awareness of the need for proper disposal has been created, ultimately enhancing the seniors’ capacity to manage their own medical needs. Further, needle-stick injuries and any resulting infections and concerns identified by Personal Support Workers (PSWs) have been reduced as evidenced by zero new PSW Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) claims, an uptake of 50 sharps containers being delivered to clients and reported feelings of increased safety when managing needle disposal. We have learned that seniors are loyal to their known pharmacy and are less likely to switch providers. As a result, we have expanded the program to include other pharmacies in a less formal manner than a partnership.

Key facts

Main target group: Older people with chronic health conditions or disability

Other target group(s): Frail elderly adults.

Sector(s): Education, Health, Social protection

Desired outcome for older people:
Meet their basic needs

Other issues the Age-friendly practice aims to address:

Accessibility
Ageing in place
Healthy behaviours (e.g. physical activity)
Inequities

Contact details

Name: Dang, Danielle

Email address: ddang@lumacare.ca

Preferred language(s): English

Age-friendly practice in detail (click to expand):

Engaging the wider community

Project lead: Social or health care provider

How collaboration worked: Through our partnership with Shoppers Drug Mart, they agreed to provide the service of dropping off, installing and picking up the sharps container free of charge to our seniors and in return, they could potentially increase seniors choosing them as their home pharmacy.

Older people’s involvement: Older people helped to implement the age-friendly practice

Details on older people’s involvement: We encourage feedback from our clients in a number of different methods such as annual client satisfaction surveys and anecdotal discussions during home visits.

Moving forward

Has the impact of this age-friendly practice been analysed: No

Do you plan to evaluate your age-friendly practice? Yes

Feedback:
Not all clients utilize Shoppers Drug Mart and would often state a preference for remaining with their current pharmacy rather than switch. Client Care Coordinators would discuss other possible benefits of moving to Shoppers however if the client continued to wish to remain with their current pharmacy the CCC would work to organize the program with their pharmacy and would do so under a different umbrella than the partnership created with Shoppers. Our frail elderly clients further identify that they perceive a cost saving feature to this initiative as they are not reliant on the use of public transit or on others to transport containers to and from a pharmacy. We further learned through feedback from clients that they are appreciative of the increased knowledge as they would often state that they simply “didn’t know” that this option existed.

Expansion plans:
Yes. More intentional and deliberate questions will be added to our assessment tools and the creation and galvanzing of partnerships with pharmacies will occur.

Looking back

Reflections:
Upon reflection, we believe a more formalized, deliberate and standardized practice across the agency would: ensure we are meeting the full need of our client base, our formal partnership is promoted, that staff, clients and caregivers are as safe as possible, and that we are in compliance with policy and best practice. We currently engage our Infection Prevention and Control Committee, however moving forward, we would engage our Clinical Practice Nurse in planning and ongoing monitoring of the program’s success and needs for improvement through audits and client engagement strategies. In addition to our formal policy which states that “employees, volunteers, staff and clients who require the administration of needles are encouraged to use safety engineered sharp devices and needle-less systems wherever possible”, we could be more deliberate and formalize processes through: adding questions related to sharps on our initial assessment, adding questions related to sharps on our 3 month service plan check and 6 month assessment as well as our home checklist; include as part of Staff training a step by step procedure on how to respond to a sustained needle stick injury including how to report and document; and provide a one page information sheet on needle stick injury safety, engineered-sharps sharp containers that would be included in our welcome package.

Challenges:
The most significant challenge was having clients switch pharmacies. As a result, we chose to engage more pharmacies rather than insist clients change to have this service implemented. Shifting the thinking patterns and current practice of our seniors to a safer regimen to use and dispose of their sharps was a further identified challenge. To address this issue, we provided education regarding the benefits and processes of the new practice. We further engaged the pharmacist to provide further education if needed.