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Empowering her nursing team to make a difference in Canterbury’s older persons health and aged residential care sectors led to Gene Ruiz’s nomination.

NAME: Gene Ruiz
DHB: Canterbury
JOB: Clinical services manager and clinical advisor – Bishop Selwyn – Ultimate Care Group

When Gene Ruiz arrived in New Zealand in 2006, she thought working in aged residential care (ARC) would be just a stepping-stone to acute care nursing.

But a decade on she’s leading a team of eight registered nurses and empowering them to be the best after discovering not only an enthusiasm for older people’s health but ensuring professional development opportunities for her staff and quality improvements leading to better outcomes for her residents.

She was also shoulder-tapped in 2013 to be part of Canterbury DHB’s first gerontology acceleration programme intake – involving postgraduate study and ‘job-swapping’ between services – that aimed to fast-track potential nurse leaders in older people’s health.

Gene says she loves ARC because you develop a sense of family and friendship with residents, their families and staff.

“It’s like one big family. You get to know your residents and understand their needs more than you would working in an acute hospital setting. I really like that consistency and continuity of care we can provide.
“With our facility manager, Diane Topschij, and our nursing team… we seek to deliver the right care, at the right time, in the right place. In line with this, we empower our nurses and caregivers through continuing professional development, to enable them to deliver the right intervention at the right time in the right place.”
Gene says she’s noticed a shift in the type of admissions since the earthquakes.

“Thanks to more community services that are allowing older people to live longer in their own homes, we have noticed that when they do get to ARC, their dependency and acuity is much greater.

“Having a skilled workforce able to respond quickly and provide a much higher level of care and treatment is critical to this.”

Gene sees ARC’s place in the health system as one where increased acute and specialist care can be provided, without the need to admit patients to hospital.

“Our biggest achievement at the end of 2015 was the reduction in the numbers of acute hospital admissions, which was more than halved from 31 in 2014 to 12 last year.

“It’s a better outcome for everyone. It’s better for the resident, for their family and for the health system as a whole, but it relies on a skilled workforce.

“We encourage and provide our RNs the tools to further their knowledge and skills. We empower them to be involved in quality activities, like auditing, surveillance and trend analysis of the quality indicators, and letting the RNs take a champion area, such as falls prevention, to focus on.”

Gene says empowering staff now frees up her some of her time to help other clinical service managers across the Ultimate Care Group, in her role as clinical advisor, to implement similar changes in their facilities.

“I feel so proud to see our RNs so enthused and passionate in their work. We take pride in the service we provide and are happy to be able to make our mark in the lives of those we care for.”