Speaker

Biography

Heather Ead is a Clinical Nurse Specialist with Neurosurgical and Orthopaedic services at Trillium Health Partners (Ontario, Canada). She has over 35 years of experience in acute care services and has led many improvement initiatives. This includes proactive pain management medical directives, enhancing ongoing education to patients and staff, and the go-live of a new electronic health record application. Most recently, she has created a working group with pharmacists, physicians and nurses to facilitate bowel health management within acute and rehab care areas of the hospital. Developing and implementing the new bowel protocol has led to positive outcomes for patients such as reduced incidence of urinary retention, constipation, as well as improved pain and satisfaction scores. Today, Heather will share current recommendations for supporting bowel health in the hospital setting.