“Education for Life” is a focus on lifelong learning so that you are

able to do your best for your clients and for yourself. At the end of

the day, you should feel proud of your work and know that you

made a difference. At Preferred Health Care Services, we strive

for excellence and quality care and know that education helps

to achieve this.

Lives are busy and we recognize that this takes extra commitment

on your part. We wish to acknowledge this effort and have cre-

ated an “Education Points System” for all non-mandatory education.

Here’s how it works:

Accreditation 2

Wellness News 2

Don’t Forget

Office Hours 3

What Would You

Do? 3

Announcements 4

HeartHeartHeartbeatbeatbeat This is the 10th

Edition of our Newsletter.

If you want to contribute

to the next edition,

email: newsletter@prefhealthcare.com

Inside This Issue

Fall Edition

Team Meetings

Linda Madigan Nov. 30 2:00-4:00

Kathy Nov. 24 6:00-8:00

Terrilynne Nov. 10 4:00-6:00

Nora Nov. 16 5:30-7:30

Martha Dec. 1 2:00-4:00

Linda Flowers

Linda McKellar Nov. 23 2:00-4:00

It is mandatory

to attend

3 of the 6 Team

meetings a year.

This Edition’s Important Inserts Benefit Program changes

Occupational Health & Safety—Roles and Responsibilities

Footwear Policy

Timesheets and Telephony

Education Dept. Gets to the Point

Sign up for a course.

Attend and sign in for the course at the start time, and stay for the duration.

Earn points for each type of class you attend based on the significance re-

lated to issues with PHCSs clients.

We will track and total your points for the year.

The top ten participants will be notified by the end of May.

Course value in Points will be set prior t course

Those names will go into a draw for the Grand Prize.

Prize value is over $500.00

Prize to be awarded at the Annual Employee Appreciation Event in June.

For this year, the ―points year‖ will be August 1 to April 30th, after which it will be May 1

– April 30th, with points being tallied in May and awards in June.

To sign up to education leave your name employee #, voice mail #, and the session your are signing up to extension 7942

Page 2 Heartbeat

Accreditation Canada – Evaluation 2012

Workplace Wellness Committee

The Workplace Wellness Committee held their 1st Health &

Wellness event. We had a great turn out

The reviews from the attendees was fabulous.

We had registration for the following education topics for

our frontline staff for future dates.

York Regional Police –Elder Abuse

Osteoporosis Canada

Alzheimer Society

Helen Keller Centre

York Region – Food Preparation

York Region – Stress Management

To sign up to education leave your name employee #, voice mail #, and the session your are signing up to extension 7942

As most of you are aware, we are evaluated every 3 years by Accreditation Canada to confirm we meet the highest

standards of excellence in providing home care services. We were successfully accredited in 2000, 2003, 2006 and

most recently 2009. This fall we will be assessing how we are doing relative to the standards. There are 3 areas to re-

view:

Organization leadership

Infection Prevention and Control

Homecare services – quality, safety, service

In preparation for our 2012 evaluation we would like your feedback on how we are doing as an organization, both in

terms of the work environment and are ability to provide safe, outstanding care.

At the end of October we will be sending all staff a questionnaire to your home address. We ask that you take the

time to complete the questionnaire and return it in the postage paid envelope. Your feedback is important and the

results will be used to develop improvement plans for 2012.

The quality improvement team, which meets every month, will be overseeing all aspects of the Accreditation process.

They will review the assessment results and identify improvement strategies.

If you have any questions about the Accreditation proc-

ess and/or would like to be more involved please con-

tact Barb van Maris, Director of Quality Improvement

and Risk Management at ext. 3256.

To see all the photos from this event go to our facebook page.

http://www.facebook.com/groups/preferredhealthcare/

Page 3 Heartbeat

Do you need to discuss an ethical issue? Ethics Hotline-extension 8000

Completely Confidential

You over hear your client on the phone telling a charitable organization

that they have no help and are quite poor in order to qualify for special

services. You know this not to be true. They ask you not to visit on a cer-

tain day because the charity is coming over to visit. They also asked you if

you could not tidy up so it will look like they need help with homemaking.

What do you do?

Info to Remember!

What Would You Do?

Regular office hours are from 8 am – 9pm, 7 days a week, including holidays.

These are the hours when a CCS is present in the office to assist with your calls

Please remember to call the office for non-urgent issues prior to 9pm each evening.

Our CCS’s leave at 9pm and only urgent calls are forwarded to the Nurse Managers

or Director of Client Services. Calling for your schedule for the next day should not be

left until after 9pm and should not be an urgent issue.

If you are ill and unable to work the next day, then please call. The Nurse Manager

can then call your clients.

Please also know where you are going the next day. Calling for directions should not

be left until after 9 pm

Education Dates November 28—Hush No Rush Part 1 4:30—7:30

November 29—Hush No Rush Part 2 4:30—7:30

December 6 Crisis Prevention Intervention Part 1 4:30—8:00

December 7 Crisis Prevention Intervention Part 2 4:30—8:00

October 19—Hush No Rush Part 1 4:30—7:30

October 20—Hush No Rush Part 2 4:30—7:30

October 19—Infection Control N95 respirator fit 1:00—5:30

To sign up to education leave your name employee #, voice mail #, and the session your are signing up to extension 7942

Holiday Open House

The Social Committee will hold a Holiday Open

House on Tuesday, December 6th, 2011 at the Pre-

ferred Offices. It will be held between the hours of

3pm-6pm. No need to make a reservation, we will

be serving some fantastic Hors d'oeuvres, music and

some holiday cheer. So make sure to drop by to

mingle with your peers and to relax.

MSD Training Kudos!

Congratulations are in order to all that have

completed their mandatory MSD training.

PHCS has trained 321 employees! It wasn’t

easy trying to fit into your

busy schedules but you did

it. Well done!

Join Our Facebook Group

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8140618903

Benefits, Orientation,

HR policies: Christina ext. 3250

Payroll, Vacation

Poonam/Julia 905-477-4006

ext. 2123

Employee Issues

Kiran: ext. 3243

Client Services Manager

Aliya Janson

ext. 3230

HELPFUL

PHONE NUMBERS

Page 4

Heartbeat

Autumn Treat

Candy Apples

http://preferredhealthcareservices-phcs.blogspot.com/ Use your Smartphone to access

Abigail Naredo

On Call CCS Nazli Eisazadeh

filing clerk

Preferred Health Care Services has over 100 nomina-

tions for the Award of Excellence. We have more nomi-

nations than any other business unit. We should be

proud of ourselves and each other. The awards span

from our management team to our PSWs working in our

client’s home.

I hope we can celebrate our success together. The final 25 will be selected

and finalists announced at the holiday party.

Congratulations team.

Tracy Jones

President PHCS

To view all the nominees:

http://issuu.com/phcs_team_lead/docs/2011_award_of_excellence_nominees

15 apples

2 cups white sugar

1 cup light corn syrup

1 1/2 cups water

8 drops red food coloring

Directions

Lightly grease cookie sheets.

Insert craft sticks into whole,

stemmed apples.

In a medium saucepan over

medium-high heat, combine

sugar, corn syrup and water.

Heat to 300 to 310 degrees F

(149 to 154 degrees C), or until a

small amount of syrup dropped

into cold water forms hard, brit-

tle threads. Remove from heat

and gently stir in food coloring.

Do not stir again.

Holding apple by its stick, dip in

syrup and remove and turn to

coat evenly. Place on prepared

sheets to harden.

Look steadily, in a good light, for 30 seconds at the

"X" in the eye of the skull, and then at a sheet of pa-

per, a wall, the ceiling or elsewhere, and continue

your gaze fixedly for another 30 seconds. An amaz-

ing ghost-like skull will appear before your eyes.

Hallowe’en Trix