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Dear Colleagues, 

​​Today, the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care released the MRSA and VRE bacteraemia rates for all Ontario hospitals. A case of MRSA or VRE bacteraemia is when the infection is in the blood.

The public can access these rates on the website - www.ontario.ca/patientsafety​ - to see how hospitals, including each of UHN’s sites, are doing in the fight against these hospital-acquired illnesses. This information, which will be updated quarterly, continues to demonstrate Ontario’s commitment to patient safety.
UHN’s commitment to infection prevention and control is reflected in the numbers. Our MRSA and VRE bacteraemia rates for the period of September - November were very low. Our MRSA rate was 0.015 per 1,000 patient days and the VRE rate was zero.

At UHN, we believe in public accountability an​d transparency. In fact, we were the first hospital in Canada to publicly post our rates for MRSA and VRE. These rates were reported quarterly and we tracked colonization as well as other forms of these infections beyond bacteraemia cases. We will continue to collect and report MRSA and VRE using this definition, as it is an indicator in the Caring domain of the Balanced Score Card. Since this indicator accounts for additional infected cases that do not have sepsis, you will notice that the results on the Balanced Scorecard are higher than the provincial results.

In the coming months, the Ministry will be releasing other patient safety indicators, including the rates for ventilator associated pneumonia, central line infections, surgical site infections and hand hygiene compliance among health care workers. Reducing the risk of hospital acquired infection is everyone's business. Everyone should assess their personal practice to ensure that we make UHN a safer hospital. 

Regards,
Bob​​
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