On October 10th, 2018, the Résidence Wales Home and CHSLD Wales Inc. received Gold recognition for Excellence in Person-Centered Care from Planetree International. Executive Director Brendalee Piironen travelled to Boston with six employees to receive this prestigious honour at Planetree’s fortieth annual International Conference on Person-Centered Care. The Wales received two additional prizes during the awards ceremony: a Global Person-Centered Care Innovation Award for its Wellness Room, and a Planetree Scholar Award, recognizing Brendalee for her commitment and achievement as a proponent of person-centered care. The CIUSSS de l’Estrie CHUS, partner of the Wales, also received their Gold Certification at the Conference for the Centre de réadaptation Estrie.
Planetree uses its international “Person-Centered Certification Program” to formally recognize excellence in person-centered care in various types of healthcare facilities. There are three tiers of recognition: Bronze, Silver, and Gold. Each tier represents an incremental level of achievement in person-centered care. There are a total of 133 Planetree-certified sites worldwide: eighty-two gold certifications, six silver, and forty-five bronze. The Wales Home is thus one of eighty-two gold-certified healthcare facilities in the world, and one of four in Canada. The CHSLD Wales is the only gold-certified long-term care facility in Quebec.
The Wales embarked on its Planetree journey in 2016, discovering that the Wales Home and CHSLD Wales were already in line with many of its values. Planetree is a not-for-profit organization that partners with healthcare facilities across the world and the care continuum in the pursuit of person-centered care. Planetree’s main components include valuing human interactions, stimulation through food and nutrition, evolution through arts and entertainment, including close ones in care, creating a healing environment, communication through human touch, being open to complementary therapies, partnering with the community, sharing information, and supporting the quest for sense. The Wales Home has and will continue to work hard to comply with these components.
The Wales Home recently appointed Kimberly Bailey as its new Planetree Coordinator. Under her guidance and expertise, the Wales will embark on its next Planetree session. The session will last three years, at the end of which the Wales hopes to be recertified Gold. Part of Kim’s role will be to provide retreats for employees to ensure proper training on the Planetree model. The achievement of these three prizes from Planetree brings the Wales Home’s total to fifteen prestigious awards won since 2011, including the recent “Recreation and Quality of Life” award from the Fédération Québécoise du loisir en institution.