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 Executive Leadership Forum meeting
UHN's Executive Leadership Forum (ELF) 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. See the full membership on
UHN.ca.
The last ELF meeting was held on Thursday, Nov. 3.
2023/2024 Strategic Plan Development Update
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Background and why this was brought to ELF: UHN's 2019-2023
Strategic Plan outlines the principles and priorities of the organization to help guide difficult decisions across care, research, and education. As we approach 2023, ELF was asked for feedback for a condensed planning process to refresh the Strategic Plan, given existing bandwidth issues at UHN, and an enhanced strategy oversight model, including regular updates to ELF for strategy and planning purposes.
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Who Presented? Joel Montesanti (Director of Strategic Projects and Planning) and Sarah Smart (Senior Corporate Planner)
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What do I need to know: ELF was enthusiastic about a proposed planning roadmap to refresh the Strategic Plan to reflect the current healthcare landscape. The Corporate Planning Team is gathering insights, including internal analysis, and consulting both the strategic plans of other top-10 hospitals and literature to devise a plan that is pervasive, flexible, meaningful, and implementable. Anticipating that the process will kickoff in January, the group anticipates six to eight months will be dedicated to seeking out input from across the organization on key priorities and areas where UHN can show leadership, while ensuring consistency across program-level strategies. ELF will provide guidance and oversight, and I will serve as executive sponsor.
Critical Care Governance Model
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Background and why this was brought to ELF: A Critical Care Governance Task Force was launched in February 2022, under the leadership of Brian Hodges, to identify a critical care governance model that is aligned with UHN values and supports the organization's
Strategic Plan. Under the current complex structure, critical care governance at UHN and Sinai Health Systems involves the provision of intensive care in five units across three separate geographic sites and two hospital organizations, lacking clarity in authority, accountability, responsibility, relationships, and decision-making.
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Who Presented? Brian Hodges (EVP, Education and Chief Medical Officer) on behalf of the Critical Care Governance Task Force.
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What do I need to know: ELF endorsed the proposed new structure to create the Interdepartmental Centre of Clinical Care (ICCC). Each of the UHN ICU sites will have a clear triadic leadership model with a clinical manager, medical director, and a professional practice manager. The ICCC head will have oversight of all five units and will collaborate with the Physician-in-Chief, Surgeon-in-Chief, and Anesthesiologist-in-Chief for medical professional practice issues and activities. The ICCC head will report to the Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Niall Ferguson, in his final year at Head of Critical Care, has played a key role in supporting the Task Force and its recommendations. UHN will launch an international search for the next head of the ICCC in new year. Operations and finances will remain status quo under the leadership of existing programs that interface with critical care.
Closing Notes
Today is the International Day of Medical Physics, chosen to honour the birthday of Marie Curie, the renowned physicist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. This year's theme – "Medical Physics for Sustainable Healthcare" – speaks to how medical physicists contribute to a more sustainable system by inventing, developing, and implementing more efficient technologies through research and education. UHN's medical physicists enable safe cancer care and train colleagues in a healthcare environment increasingly driven by technology. We thank these dedicated colleagues for their contributions to the diagnosis and treatment of disease.
November 6-12 is Perioperative Nurses Week and we want to express our most sincere gratitude to our teams here at UHN. The more than 200 perioperative nurses across our Toronto Western, Toronto General, and Princess Margaret campuses are foundational to our surgical program. Almost 20,000 surgeries are performed every year in the best surgical program in the country, and perioperative nurses make the difference in our patient's journeys. Thank you, each and every one of you.
Genetic Counsellor Awareness Day is marked across North America on Thursday, Nov. 10, giving us an opportunity to recognize the important services that Genetic Counsellors provide across UHN. Genetic counsellors are health professionals with specialized training and expertise in medical genetics, genomics, and counselling. In the era of personalized medicine, their knowledge and skills are increasingly essential in helping patients, families and other healthcare providers interpret and understand complex genetic information. There are almost 20 genetic counsellors working across UHN, in the Genetics Program (the
Fred A. Litwin Family Centre in Genetic Medicine and the
Bhalwani Familial Cancer Clinic), Peter Munk Cardiac Centre (TGH), Wallace-McCain Centre for Pancreatic Cancer (PM), GoodHope EDS Clinic (TGH), Hepatobiliary Oncology Program (TGH), KNC Epilepsy Genetics Clinic (TWH), Elisabeth Raab Neurofibromatosis Clinic (TGH/TWH) and the Department of Lab Medicine, Genome Diagnostics.
A research team from UHN has shown how a new, artificial intelligence-enabled algorithm can scan health data to distinguish between two heart conditions. The study, led by scientists at the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute, focused on two conditions caused by an abnormal hole in the atria of the heart: atrial septal defect, a serious congenital heart defect, and patent foramen ovale, which is found in a quarter of all people. Both conditions are treated with a procedure called transcatheter closure. Since differentiating between patients with these conditions is difficult due to how they are classified in databases, the team used machine learning to analyze the health records of more than 4,600 who underwent transcatheter closure over a period of 15 years. The most successful model accurately distinguished between the two conditions 76 per cent of the time.
Read more about this study at UHN News.
And now, our TikTok of the week. Have you ever wondered how enormous MRI machines get into the hospital? This
video helps to answer that question.
Feedback?
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Have a good week,
Kevin
