#IamMGH tells the stories of our people. In honour of Nurse Practitioner Week (November 10 to 16), meet Raychel Moore, Nurse Practitioner in the Geriatric Medicine Program at Michael Garron Hospital (MGH).
“I knew I wanted to work in a healthcare-related field and help people since I was a young child. I remember my mom brought home a children’s book on human anatomy, and since then, I have been fascinated by how the human body works.
Before becoming a Nurse Practitioner (NP), I was an intensive care unit nurse. I decided to further my education by completing a master’s degree in nursing and the NP Program at the University of Toronto. This broadened my opportunities and autonomy in the form of an extended scope of practice. I believe being an NP is a unique role because we combine a biomedical approach with a holistic nursing perspective to assess, diagnose and treat our patients effectively.
I was fortunate to have an amazing NP mentor who ignited my passion for senior’s care during my final NP rotation in geriatrics. The comprehensive nature of geriatric assessments resonated with me and my training as an NP. I really enjoyed getting to know and understand the patient as a person first, rather than focusing solely on the patient’s disease.
The best part of my job at Michael Garron Hospital (MGH) is being able to advocate for our seniors. Older adults carry a higher risk for delirium, so it is rewarding when we can efficiently prevent or manage their risk of this. This helps mitigate a number of negative outcomes, such as longer hospital stays, functional decline and premature admission to nursing homes, that can ultimately impact their well-being and level of independence when they return to the community.
In my current role, I support the prevention and management of delirium by ensuring the delirium education and training for our teams is accurate and that it follows the latest research-based recommendations. I have collaborated with the Regional Geriatric Program of Ontario and the Toronto Academic Health Science Network to develop delirium learning modules. These modules offer a refresher on important topics related to delirium to help ensure healthcare teams in our city have the tools and knowledge they need to adequately manage delirium.
As the Nurse Practitioner Director of MGH’s Seniors Strategy, I also collaborate with teams across the hospital to develop and implement strategies aimed at making the patient experience better for one of our most vulnerable populations: seniors. This work involves supporting senior-specific initiatives like senior’s lunch-and-learn sessions, delirium education workshops and our recently launched Hospital Elder Life Program – all of which are designed to help improve seniors’ experience at the hospital, as well as their overall health and well-being. I find it incredibly rewarding to know that our efforts can make a difference in their lives.
Through these projects, I learned that sometimes the simplest interventions can create the most significant impact on patient care, especially for our aging population. No intervention is too small to make an impact. In addition, it’s important to recognize seniors are often more capable than we think, and we need to ensure their needs and desires are heard. We need to care for our patients the way we want to be cared for.”
To learn more about the work of Nurse Practitioners, visit the Nurse Practitioners’ Association of Ontario’s website.