On Friday August 24th, the Government of Ontario, the Ontario Hospital Association and the Canadian Institute for Health released Hospital Reports 2007. As you may recall from previous years, the reports are a "snapshot" of hospital performance in key areas. Two of the four reports are relevant to University Health Network: Acute Care and Emergency Department care.
UHN ranked "High Performer" in both reports
We're pleased to share that UHN was ranked as a "High Performing" hospital in both reports-in Acute Care, for our Financial Performance, and in Emergency Department Care, for Clinical Utilization and Outcomes. This means that we're performing very well in managing acute care resources (reducing sick time, managing debt and expenses), and in the ED, we're keeping readmissions low, and reducing our length of stay.
UHN also stood out for our efforts to foster a healthy work environment through wellness initiatives, our reduced sick time, and for our use of clinical information technology, such as online medication order entry.
Where we can improve
UHN thrives on data for continuous improvement. By collecting data, we can identify areas that need work, and develop strategies to address them. The Hospital Reports confirm that we still have work to do in the areas of patient satisfaction, surgical readmissions and nurse-sensitive medical events (pressure ulcers is a key part of this indicator). These are areas that we have identified and where we are focusing our improvement initiatives. Here are some examples. More than 500 UHN staff have completed Patient Centred Care training. Our OR Transformation Project is well underway; and we are participating in Safer Healthcare Now, an initiative that includes following evidence-based protocols to reduce pressure ulcers.
Congratulations-and thank you for your hard work
The Hospital Reports are based on a "Balanced Scorecard" approach and on balance, our results are very favorable, especially amongst Toronto teaching hospitals. In most of the areas, UHN leads or ranks very closely with our colleagues. It's thanks to all of you that we can be proud of our results and that we are ready to build on our successes to make UHN even better for our patients, our staff and the Ontario health care system.
If you'd like to review the Hospital Reports in more detail, you can find them online at: http://www.hospitalreportcards.ca/.
Bob, Catherine and Kevin
