The Dementia Isolation Toolkit was developed to provide evidence-informed guidance to support infection prevention and control measures that are consistent with person-centered care within long term care homes (LTCHs) during the pandemic. This project is a four-phase mixed-methods, research study evaluating the impact of the DIT intervention on outcomes related to 1) achieving safe, effective, and compassionate isolation of residents and 2) levels of moral distress amongst LTCH staff in three LTCHs situated in rural and city settings. The effectiveness of the DIT and the processes developed for its implementation will also be explored through developmental evaluation. Our approach includes multiple rapid quantitative (e.g., administrative/clinical surveys) and qualitative (e.g., interviews) analyses with up to 130 LTCH staff and family caregiver participants. We will directly engage these same knowledge users in the implementation process as part of the developmental evaluation, to increase the potential impact of the DIT intervention. 

The research will be completed by December 2021 and expected outputs are: 

• The development of evidence-informed implementation approaches and materials for wide-spread distribution through our website.  

• We will publish articles in open-access journals relevant to long-term care and implementation science and share our findings on our website, on social media and through conference presentations.