Good morning, TeamUHN!
It is a pleasure to connect with you across care, research, and education through this weekly CEO update – all in service of A Healthier World.
Key reminders and updates
What happened at the Senior Management Forum meeting
UHN's Senior Management Forum (SMF) represents a broad range of voices and skill sets from across the organization and provides direction and oversight in service of patients, TeamUHN and our vision of A Healthier World. SMF meets monthly.
The last SMF meeting was held on March 24, 2022.
Synapse update
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Background and why this was brought to SMF: The Synapse project is our clinical transformation of the care experience for patients and providers and it includes transitioning to a new health information system (HIS) powered by Epic on June 4, 2022. Project leads provided an update to the Senior Management Forum on training registration and preparation, appointment conversion, cutover, the Technical Dress Rehearsal (TDR), and what's ahead for readiness.
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Who Presented? Chelsea King (Change Management and Benefit Realizations Lead),
Ivanka Hanley (Sr. Manager, Training & Education),
Jennifer Hope (Project Director, End User Devices),
Mary Beth Carpenter (Manager, Enterprise Scheduling), and
Saket Harshe (Senior Manager, Digital Health)
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What do I need to know:
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Training: Super User Training began on March 21, which is a significant project milestone, and as of March 23, more than 80% of staff and physicians are registered for Epic training. The focus now is to close that gap while also getting fellows, residents, and other learners registered. It's imperative that all class participants complete the required
tech-check and eLearnings prior to class out of respect for everyone's time and to improve their own experience and learning.
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Appointment conversion: Scheduling and registration teams begin using Epic on May 16 to book patient appointments that will take place after June 4. Current appointments in the legacy systems will be converted during Appointment Conversion Weekend (May 14-15). A total of 410 staff will be needed to help with appointment conversion during that weekend. Recruitment of registration staff from JDMI is complete, but more staff are needed from
Outpatient Clinics and Physician Offices,
Cardiology,
Endoscopy, and
Surgery. The deadline is Wednesday, March 30.
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Cutover: This complex and highly-coordinated process that will happen June 1-3 involves making sure that all visits and orders for in-hospital inpatient and emergency patients are manually transferred prior to Epic go-live (June 4, 2022). Dry-runs, where cutover participants will simulate the cutover process to ensure it will run smoothly in June, will be held on March 30 and April 27. Directors are working with managers to help identify dry-run participants as well as meet the April 15 deadline for recruiting participants for the main event in June.
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Technical Dress Rehearsal: The testing of every non-medical device used with Epic continues across UHN until June 1, with more than 40% tested already. The
End User Device Readiness Dashboard is updated weekly. As of last week, more than 75% of Windows 7 devices across UHN have been upgraded or replaced. UHN has received almost 88% of the devices ordered for Epic. The majority of those devices have been deployed, except for the iPhones for Rover that will be deployed in May. We are expecting 624 monitors to be delivered this week.
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What's ahead: Concurrent Charting, the process by which some clinical areas will have the chance to practice documenting in Epic, will occur in April and May. There will also be
Patient Flow Days between April 20-22, where TeamUHN can attend virtual sessions with demonstrations of how common patient flows will look in Epic and Q&A discussions on integrated workflows and handoffs.
Closing Notes
Congratulations to Mary Lollar who recently marked her 730th consecutive day running, a truly remarkable feat
captured by CityNews. Mary, who works as an administrative assistant in the division of respirology at Toronto General, took up running at the beginning of the pandemic and told CityNews she kept going each day for those arriving at hospitals with COVID. "I think to myself, I can do this and there's millions that can't," she said. Mary is retiring on March 31. We thank her for her many years of service and for inspiring so many members of TeamUHN during such a difficult period.
Congratulations to Robert Brussolo on his retirement after 44 years at UHN! Robert first started working at UHN in 1978, as a part-time dietary porter for Versa Services at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Over the years Robert has been an important part of many changes that have occurred in the Nutrition Department including the introduction of cook/freeze food production, transition from hot tray assembly to cold plating, and the University Centre becoming the tray assembly hub for much of Toronto Rehab. Robert has been in his current role as a Store Person since 1997, where he maintains the flow of food and supplies in and out of the University Centre Kitchen. Robert is looking forward to spending more time with his wife, children and grandchild as well as getting a few rounds of golf in.
Congratulations to Susan Nash on her retirement after 40 years of service at UHN! Susan first started at Toronto General in 1981 on 14 Eaton (General Medicine) providing care to patients with Cardiac, Hematologic, and Gastrointestinal illnesses as well as Home TPN patients. Susan worked in the TGH relief pool when she went back to school to complete her BScN before transferring to the Vascular Surgery where she worked as a Research Coordinator for a drug trial for arterial leg ulcers. Upon completion of this trial, Susan provided time data collection for a Radiology Research Trial. After her work in research, Susan returned to the bedside in vascular surgery and urology before transferring to the MSICU where she has been an integral part of the team for well over 20 years. Susan holds a Canadian Nurses Association in Critical Care and is a vital member of the Critical Care Response Team. Over the years, Susan has dedicated her career to the provision of quality patient care.
You will soon notice a 40-foot flagpole outside of Toronto General, part of a new fundraising campaign from JDRF to fund research to cure type 1 diabetes (T1D). At this location and in four other spots across the country,
people impacted by T1D will live in a structure atop the pole for 100 hours – from April 4 to 8 – to raise $15 million towards JDRF's $100-million campaign.
Vanessa Oliver, diagnosed with T1D at six, will be atop the flagpole at Toronto General. More than 30 years ago, her father, Peter, spent a week atop a 40-foot pole in Toronto to raise money for diabetes research, saying that balancing up there was like the balancing act of life and death decisions faced each day by those with T1D. The event coincides with the 100th anniversary of the first clinical use of insulin, given at Toronto General on Jan. 23, 1922.
Learn more about the campaign here.
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Have a good week,
Kevin
