Preserving residents' rights in long-term care settings: a values-based approach to restraint reduction

This article describes a knowledge transfer process that was developed by Catholic Health East (CHE), headquartered in Newtown Square, PA, and that focuses upon one indicator of care, physical restraint use, in the skilled nursing/long-term care setting. The values-based process focuses on preserving residents' rights and using comparative data sharing as the basis for identifying opportunities for improvement. Further, it builds upon a collaborative cyclical model employed by all the CHE System's freestanding and hospital-based long-term care facilities. The experiences of four of the system's facilities are described; each one demonstrates different aspects of implementing mission-oriented strategies to target restraint reduction.