The Delirium Aware Safer Healthcare (DASH) campaign is a multi-year quality improvement campaign that builds towards reducing hospital-acquired delirium across Ontario.
Currently entering Year 2 of a 3-year campaign, the improvement bundles focused on are:
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Cautiously prescribing medications that increase delirium risk (e.g., sedative hypnotics [for sleep] and/or opioids [for post-surgical pain])
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Optimizing sleep environment
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Promoting discussion of delirium in huddles
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Engage care partners
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Optimize wellness during the wakeful hours
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Target specific diagnoses at high-risk of delirium
The campaign will continue to build, adding additional delirium interventions in year 3.
Why focus on delirium
Delirium is one of the leading causes of preventable hospital harms in Ontario. Delirium impacts patient and provider safety, access and flow, and alternate level of care days. Delirium is associated with increased mortality and those affected by it have hospital visits prolonged an average 8 days, resulting in additional $11,000 per hospital stay.
What can you do
In April 2024, Ontario Health launched a learning community that offers all participants the opportunity to learn from their peers and from experts across the province via virtual ‘live’ touchpoints. Participants can connect with their peers on an online discussion forum and in virtual campaign calls and have the opportunity to develop peer-mentoring relationships focused on reducing hospital-acquired delirium.
Who can participate
Any hospital that is interested in reducing or is already working on reducing hospital-acquired delirium is welcome to participate.
Getting started
You can start right now by:
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Signing up for DASH CoP on Quorum. If you are signed up for quorum you will automatically receive all future campaign communications
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Share you team’s contacts using this template and send to ClinicalQuality@OntarioHealth.ca
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Register here for learning sessions and campaign calls
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Complete and share your delirium action plan with us
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Email ClinicalQuality@OntarioHealth.ca for more information
Once you’ve joined the DASH CoP or expressed interest by email, you can align your resources by doing one or more of the following:
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Engage your senior leadership to include your DASH work in your Quality Improvement Plan
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Connect with your region’s access and flow lead to learn how you can align DASH with your alternative level of care (ALC) leading practices work. If you need help reaching out email us at ClinicalQuality@OntarioHealth.ca
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Find out if your hospital participates in Ontario Health’s ONSQIN or GeMQIN programs to identify collaboration opportunities
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Use our promotional deck to pull together a delirium implementation team
Resources
The eReport is an online tool for hospitals. It allows you to access indicators that help enable quality improvement. The report is dynamic, and you can view data at the hospital and regional levels. You will need a ONE ID account to access the data.
DASH Advisory Panel
Sophiya Benjamin
Geriatric Psychiatrist/Co-executive Director Hamilton Health Sciences Centre/GeriMedRisk
Kerri Bennett
Manager Health Care Improvement Ontario Health
Lisa Burry
Clinician Scientist Sinai Health System
Dana Corsi
Advisor, Alternate Level of Care Ontario Health
Sandra Easson-Bruno
Director, North Simcoe Muskoka Specialized Geriatric Services
Kathryn Ellett
Quality Improvement Specialist London Health Sciences Centre
Tim Jackson
Clinical Lead, Surgery University Health Network
Kelly Kay
Executive Director Provincial Geriatrics Leadership of Ontario
Edmond Kwok
Director of Quality Improvement, Department of Emergency Medicine, The Ottawa Hospital
Barbara Liu
Geriatrician, Executive Director Regional Geriatric Program of Toronto
Don Melady
Lead, Geriatric Emergency Medicine Program, Sinai Health System
Fahad Raza
Clinical Co-lead, Medicine Unity Health Toronto
Jenny Thain
Geriatrician, London Health Sciences Centre
Amol Verma
Clinical Co-lead, Medicine Unity Health Toronto
Camilla Wong
Geriatrician/Division of Geriatrics Associate Professor Unity Health Toronto/University of Toronto