Implementing Best Practice in Dementia Care: the Role of Electronic Learning Resources in Developing Sustainable Practice.

Abstract

Evidence to support the utility of dementia friendly environments, underpinned by a person-centred philosophy of care has developed over time. Nevertheless, many facilities struggle with the necessary culture change to move from a task-oriented to a person-centred approach of dementia care. Educating the numbers of staff needed to facilitate culture change, especially in rural locations, is a key issue because if all staff are not in someway involved, then sustained and enduring change is unlikely. However, educational research shows us that human beings need regular, frequent repetition of information in order to learn it, adopt and sustain change. Post training support is essential to facilitate the sustained adoption of new workplace care actions. This paper reports on a unique educational component of a project funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing under the Encouraging Best Practice in Residential Aged Care program. The aim of the overall project is to develop implementation strategies to address behaviours of concern by creating dementia friendly environments in seven rural residential aged care facilities in Victoria, Australia. This presentation focuses on the development and implementation of ‘micro-training’ to support the translation of knowledge into practice as part of routine work schedules. Micro-training has been specifically developed to address issues of sustainability following education. The purpose of the micro-training is to provide daily contact with the core ideas of best practice in person-centred dementia care. Designed to be used in small group opportunities such as shift change/handovers, micro-training is a one minute piece of video followed by a question for the group to answer in discussion for about another minute or two. The e-resource comprises 20 one minute video presentations, each one a message linked to principles of person-centred dementia care to address behaviours of concern. Results indicate that even poorly resourced rural residential care facilities can benefit from micro-training in supporting the introduction of evidence-based practice. The micro-training approach is a simple approach to promoting shared values to implement and sustain best practice. The value of linking messages to key quality and accreditation documents is important.