I'll start by thanking the people who have taken the time to tell me that the Monday message is read and appreciated. This is a big place with a lot going on, so I can only give you my 'highlights'. I'm also discovering that I can't make it to everything and I'm very sorry to have missed The Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation's event honouring
Paul Alofs who has stepped down from his role as President & CEO of the PMCF after 14 years. The team at PMCF, with Paul's leadership, has raised $1.2 billion to support cancer care, research and education. The evening raised $1.6 million in Paul's honour, a huge mark of respect for his contribution to UHN. And about Paul's bobblehead which was given out at the event and the video – you can see both
here.
Another highlight of my week was getting stopped in the hall by a staff member from Facilities who had just completed his Caring Safely training. He said that the video with UHN leaders, talking about the errors we'd made, was moving and said a great deal to the room about the fact that speaking up for safety was something everyone can and should do. I checked and 59% of UHN staff have completed the Caring Safely basic courses. My thanks to the volunteer trainers and everyone who has taken the training because we now have more and more people thinking about what they can do to make UHN a safer place for patients, visitors and staff.
I spent some time with
Tim Jackson last week, a UHN surgeon who has headed our implementation of the National Surgical Quality Improvement Plan (NSQIP) at UHN and worked with Health Quality Ontario on the
provincial surgical safety report which was released last Thursday. UHN adopted this approach in 2012, thanks to the support, encouragement and investment by
Shaf Keshavjee, UHN's Surgeon in Chief. Since then, 29 Canadian hospitals have signed on, all working together to measure, report and improve surgical safety. Tim tells me that UHN is doing well and NSQIP helps us find and track areas where there is room to improve. The critical contribution of NSQIP is that it gives us international benchmarks. If we want to be the best, we have to benchmark against the world's best. And, my thanks to everyone who helped pay for NSQIP – the late
John MacNaughton, the Division of General Surgery, and the Department of Surgery. It takes money to move great ideas forward and we're fortunate that people are willing to invest in UHN.
And, of note last week,
Chris Paige and
Eleanor Fish, were given Research Canada's 2017 Leadership in Advocacy Award which recognizes outstanding champions of health research and health innovation at the local, regional and/or national level. Chris and Eleanor have worked tirelessly as advocates who educate policymakers, the media and the public about the health, social, and economic benefits of health research and health innovation in Canada. We owe them a great deal and are proud that they are part of UHN.
The last event of the week was a visit from federal Minister of Science, the Honourable Kirsty Duncan with
Brad Wouters,
Mary Gospodarowicz and
David Jaffray acting as hosts. My thanks to everyone who helped set up the 90 minute visit. I am confident that she left impressed by what she saw.
Charlie
