Identifying and De-Implementing Low-Value Administrative Practices in Long-Term Care

with Lauren MacEachern, PhD candidate, Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluation University of Toronto

About the Event:

Healthcare organizations strive to improve care quality through the implementation of evidence-based clinical practices and the de-implementation of ‘low-value’ clinical practices. This improvement mindset is common when considering clinical practices, but our evaluation of existing administrative practices is lacking. This can lead to significant variation across healthcare organizations. The continued use of low-value administrative practices has the potential to exert profound impacts in environments where resources, including staff and time are scarce, such as the Canadian long-term care sector. In this presentation, I will share preliminary findings from the thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with long-term care home decision-makers to understand (1) how ‘low-value administrative practices’ are identified and characterized and (2) how context has impacted the perceptions of what long-term care home decision-makers perceive as ‘low-value’. This research will have important contributions to how we think about and prioritize administrative tasks in this resource-scarce setting. With an understanding of how ‘low-value administrative practices’ are identified, the next stage of this research will seek to understand the de-implementation process in long-term care settings.

About Lauren MacEachern:

Lauren MacEachern is a 4th year Ph.D. candidate working under the supervision of Dr. Whitney Berta at the Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto, and a Doctoral Trainee with the Translating Research in Elder Care program of research at the University of Alberta. She is also a trainee in the Collaborative Program in Aging, Palliative & Supportive Care across the Life Course, University of Toronto. Lauren received her Bachelor of Science degree in Honours Biology with a specialization in gerontology from the University of Waterloo in 2015 and Master of Arts in Family Studies and Gerontology from Mount Saint Vincent University in 2017. Lauren’s research interests are in long-term care, implementation science, organization and management science, and health services research.

This seminar will be recorded and can be accessed within a week on our YouTube Channel under Seminars Playlist

> Join the event via Zoom on March 31 here

Housed at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, the University of Toronto’s Institute for Life Course & Aging (ILCA) facilitates interdisciplinary research on the biological, psychological and social dimensions of the life course and aging; and provides graduate and post-graduate education on the life course and aging. FIFSW professor Esme Fuller-Thomson is the Institute’s director.