On behalf of Kevin, Catherine and myself, I'm pleased to share the Third Quarter (Q3) Results for UHN's Balanced Scorecard (October 1, 2007- December 31, 2007). This quarter we want to highlight the infection control indicator results.
We saw a drop in the C. Difficile indicator, which records the proportions of patients identified by Infection Prevention and Control (IPAC) with C. Diff. infections. We think that this is largely due to focused efforts directed at improving hand hygiene practices - especially on our General Medicine Units. C. Diff. is a lethal bacterium for some of our elderly patients. Even when the infection is identified at its early stages (and our IPAC team is extraordinarily vigilant), a C. Diff infection can keep patients admitted for a very long time since rehab hospitals and long-term care homes will not accept the patient with C. Diff stool cultures.
One indicator that continues to be a challenge in the "Caring" domain is Emergency Department (ED) wait time results. However, we are pleased to see our average number of ALC days per ALC patient indicator decreased this quarter. We think this is due to the efforts being made by the clinical teams to enhance partnerships with rehab hospitals (Bridgepoint and Toronto Rehab, in particular) so that they can identify patients appropriate for transfer earlier. Both Bridgepoint and TRI have staff members on site at UHN working with our teams to identify patient needs better. We all know that ED wait times are directly proportionate to the number of ALC patients on our units. Reducing ALC days is the best thing we can do for our ED patients.
I hope you'll take a moment to take a look at the Q3 results through this link.
How to Interpret the Results:
-Indicators marked in "Green" show that we're on track towards meeting our target
-Indicators marked in "Yellow" show that we're not yet on track to meeting our target, but we're improving
-Indicators marked in "Red" show that we have not yet made progress toward the target
For some indicators, we do not have results at this time given some initiatives have not begun.
Bob, Kevin and Catherine
