Maplewood Celebrates 2016's Successes

Kim McFadden and Terry Ames serve up ice cream sundaes at a recent ice cream party held to celebrate the year's accomplishments at Maplewood.

CANTON - In 2015 close to 600 days were lost to work-related injuries at Maplewood Health Care and Rehabilitation Center.

That fact was shared with people attending an ice cream party at Maplewood earlier this month by Administrator Kim McFadden. She then followed up by asking people to guess how many days have been lost to injury in the building this year.

"This year we have only lost 29 days to injury," she would then say proudly, often eliciting a surprised result from whomever she was sharing that fact with.

When asked how the building was able to reduce lost time by such a dramatic amount, Ms. McFadden said there were a number of factors involved.

"This year, we had a safety slogan and each resident's room is now equipped with slide sheets," she said. "I by no means attribute everything to that, but it certainly helped create better overall safety awareness."

Staff Development Assistant Robin Leonard said the purchase of several new shower chairs and ceiling lifts may have also helped reduce the number of injuries.

"Those purchases helped to create a safer environment for both employees and residents," Ms. Leonard said, as she joined Ms. McFadden in greeting employees at the ice cream party.

In addition to celebrating the reduction in time lost to injury, Ms. McFadden said the building was also celebrating "a great survey."

Employees attending the party were each served an ice cream sundae and presented with a Maplewood t-shirt. They were also given a glimpse at even more new safety equipment, including four shower chairs, two hoyer lifts and 17 slings which Ms. McFadden said were purchased using funds saved as a result of the reduced injury time.