Good Tuesday morning,

Hope everyone got to enjoy the sunshine and spend time with loved ones this Canada Day. Thank you to all those who worked in service of patients and families at UHN and beyond.

1. Highlights on UHN's Essentials

UHN's Essentials are essential to the work we do as a leading academic health sciences centre – hence the name! Read here to learn more. Below, you'll find highlights on UHN's Essentials from last week.

Partnerships Premier's Council on Improving Healthcare and Ending Hallway Medicine releases second report:See the official release and full report from the Government of Ontario. Many important recommendations on integration, innovation, efficiency and alignment, and capacity. Great to see how our work at UHN aligns with this across care, research and education – we stand ready to help.

Compassionate Care and Caring / Partnerships Open Forum – the top question on "Tomorrow's Care" right now: "Mental health services, or the lack thereof, is an issue across UHN. Can you tell us what the strategy is to ensure all patients who are in need of mental health services will receive this support?"

The event below launches our "A Healthier World" Open Forum series; each forum within the series will be themed around one Strategic Priority. We will be gathering tomorrow at noon to discuss.

Partnerships We all have an impact and every person is important – another example demonstrated by Accounts Payable: For those who don't know, we are experiencing some staffing and volume challenges in Accounts Payable. Our vendors have been patient and understanding while we're working to staff up and catch up. While we are working to ensure this situation doesn't happen again – because we should never be in a situation where care and the patient experience could be impacted – it also emphasizes how connected our work is on TeamUHN. Every part affects others. My sincere thanks to our clinical colleagues and Accounts Payable for holding down the fort.

Quality and Safety Due to a spike in wet loads experienced in the Toronto Western (TW) Medical Device Reprocessing Department (MDRD), we have now removed the majority of TW's steam sterilization services off site to the Toronto General MDRD. This will be in effect until Tuesday July 2 at the earliest. All other forms of reprocessing and sterilization continue on site at TW. Changes have been made to our steam supply, condensate lines and vacuum pumps to mitigate the wet pack issue. To ensure we have an effective delivery system in place, MDRD will conduct a full assessment of the sterilizer's functionality and when deemed safe to do so, will gradually repatriate steam sterilization services back to the TW MDRD. I would like to recognize the work of the MDRD teams at both sites as well as our colleagues in FM-PRO (Facilities Management – Planning, Redevelopment and Operations), the Transportation team and LEAN coach who are all working hard to resolve this issue.

People and Culture Focus on equity – great to see Lee Fairclough, Lisa Richardson and Catherine Wang speaking at the Women Who Lead Women's Leadership Network: Last week, Harvard Business Review also published some research suggesting that women score higher than men in most leadership skills based on an analysis of 360-degree reviews. The article provides additional impetus to us to see if we are succumbing to unconscious bias when it comes to promoting women. Here at UHN, we are committing to doing this for all groups and setting these expectations across care, research and education. Thanks to Catherine, Lisa and Lee for leading a discussion on how we can do this and deliver on our commitment of an empowered and diverse TeamUHN.

2. UHN proud to host RehabWeek 2019, which was held in Canada for the first time last week.

More than 1 in 10 Canadians live with a disability – one of the many reasons rehab science is so important to our country. Last week, our colleagues at Toronto Rehab hosted RehabWeek 2019, the bi-annual premier international conference dedicated to the rehabilitation sciences. To get a sense of the event – which showcased innovations such as robotics, functional electrical stimulation, artificial intelligence and included more than 1,600 delegates from around the world – watch this quick highlights reel. Special thanks to Mayor John Tory for delivering opening remarks and thanking all attendees for contributing to the quality of life for people everywhere.

3. What we discussed at our Executive Leadership Forum

Here is what we discussed at last week"s Executive Leadership Forum meeting (see who attends these meetings on this Intranet page):

  • Update on the ambulatory medication reconciliation work we're doing in preparation for UHN's Accreditation visit in September: Thanks to Jin Huh (Senior Director, Pharmacy) for presenting. Medication reconciliation involves clinicians partnering with clients and families to prevent adverse drug events by creating an accurate and comprehensive medication history with a second check each time someone comes in for care. It's an important patient safety intervention. We are working to support clinicians and staff in the ambulatory clinics, where medication management is a major component of care, to incorporate medication reconciliation practices by providing education and tools to physicians, nursing, pharmacy and other staff.

4. Cindy Yelle, President & CEO of Toronto Rehab Foundation (TRF), stepping down after nearly a decade of service

We thank Cindy for her dedicated service and wish her well in the next chapter of her career. Cindy has led TRF since 2010 and has seen Toronto Rehab and the TRF Board through the completion of the campaign to update and expand our facility, Toronto Rehab's integration with UHN, and the recent completion of the $100 million campaign. Gillian Howard (Vice President, Public Affairs & Communications) will serve as Interim President from July 2 forward. Linda Mezon, TRF's Board Chair, has asked Heather Stockton (TRF's Chair of the Board's Human Resources Committee) to lead the selection committee for the next leader.

Have a good week,

Kevin

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