Good afternoon, 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
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This will be the final Weekly Update for 2023. With the holidays approaching, I want to again thank TeamUHN for your remarkable work this year across patient care, research, and education, and wish you the very best of the season. I hope you all find time to rest and recharge with loved ones. We thank those TeamUHN members who will work in service of patients over the holidays – your sacrifices are deeply appreciated. Whether you celebrate the traditions of Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or another festivity, I wish you all peace and joy and look forward to reconnecting in the New Year.
Please see my holiday message here.
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We are encouraged to share that the UHN Winter Discharge Centre is opening today. As temperatures drop and there continues to be capacity constraints in the shelter system and challenges accessing shelter beds, we are responding to the community needs around us. Located at 750 Dundas Street West, the Winter Discharge Centre will help support UHN patients with no fixed address by providing a safe space overnight, and help alleviate the moral distress of discharging patients to the street during the winter. As a first phase, patients can be referred from the UHN Emergency Departments to the Winter Discharge Centre when no alternative shelter can be found. The site will operate from 4:00 p.m. to 12:00 p.m. daily until April 15, 2024. ED staff can call the Winter Discharge Centre directly to refer eligible patients during operating hours. This effort would not have been possible without the support from many areas within UHN, including Social Medicine & Population Health, FM-PRO, Allied Health, ED and GIM, Flow, Bioethics, Legal, Safety, and Security. The Centre will be supported by community partners, The Neighbourhood Group. and One Community Solutions.
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UHN has launched a Winter Warmth Drive to support patients. We will be collecting gently used, laundered winter coats and new winter hats, gloves, and socks for UHN patients in need who visit our Emergency Department, Stabilization Site, and Winter Discharge Centre, as well as inpatient units. Drop-off boxes are located in the Toronto Western Hospital at the Bathurst Street entrance and Atrium, and the Toronto General Hospital at the Eaton and Gerrard Street entrances. The UHN Transportation team will coordinate regular collection throughout the winter and drop-off to UHN sites.
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UHN has won a Green Hospital Scorecard Award for Leadership by the Canadian Coalition for Green Healthcare. The Green Hospital Scorecard is Canada's only comprehensive health care environmental performance tool measuring energy and water conservation, waste management and recycling, corporate commitment, and pollution prevention. This award is a testament to UHN's commitment to leading sustainably and reducing our ecological footprint. We are grateful to our exceptional Energy & Environment team, part of the Facilities Management – Planning, Redevelopment & Operations (FM-PRO) Department for all they do each day to help UHN be as green as possible. Learn more about the Green Hospital Scorecard. Visit the Talkin' Trash blog to learn more about green initiatives at UHN.
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Later this month, we will bid a heartfelt goodbye to Mary Kay McCarthy, Clinical Director of Toronto Rehab's Complex Continuing Care program, after a 38-year career at UHN. Mary Kay served as a frontline nurse, clinical educator, and unit manager at Toronto Western before becoming a clinical director and is beloved by so many for her sense of humour, advocacy for patients, and get-it-done attitude. "It's the people at UHN who make it such a special place," she told UHN News. "What you do is very important, but it's the way you treat each other that really matters."
Read more at UHN News, including her one piece of advice for TeamUHN colleagues who will deliver tomorrow's care.
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UHN Researchers have developed a tool to predict a liver complication that occurs in 40 per cent of patients following transplant. Scientists at Toronto General Hospital Research Institute and the Ajmera Transplant Centre harnessed Artificial Intelligence and radiomics – a method of converting medical images such as CT scans into quantitative data to be analyzed – to develop a model to predict recurrent liver fibrosis, the formation of scar tissue in the liver due to persistent injury or inflammation and a significant factor impacting survival. Read UHN News to learn more and be sure to check out the full study online.
Closing Notes
And now.. our
video of the week. In this clip, we learn more about Spiritual Care Services at UHN.
Feedback?
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Have a good week,
Kevin
