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
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Reminder that today, Monday, August 9th, UHN's policy on home testing for COVID-19 takes effect.
You can read the policy here. This means that all members of TeamUHN must have either received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, or have tested negative on a rapid-test within 48 hours of coming to any UHN site. Declaring vaccination status means indicating one of the following
four choices: 1. I am vaccinated, 2. I will not be vaccinated, 3. I cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons, or 4. I will not be registering my vaccination status. If you have yet to declare, you can do so here
[Editor's Note: Link is no longer available].
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Last week, the City of Toronto and Team Toronto vaccination partners announced the completion of in-home second dose COVID-19 vaccinations for all homebound residents identified during the initial homebound vaccination phase. Approximately 8,000 homebound residents have now received both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine through the Homebound Sprint initiative. My thanks to all members of Team Vaccine and all of our vaccination partners who worked so hard to make this happen. More information on this
announcement can be found at the City of Toronto's release here.
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 August 5, 2021.
Update on the Help Desk
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Background: A few months ago, a significant service interruption occurred with Compucom, the external company that manages/answers UHN's Help Desk calls. During the interruption, UHN Digital assembled an internally staffed help desk that experienced no lapse in service.
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Who presented? Carl Virtanen (Executive Director, Digital Operations & Research IT, UHN Digital)
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What do I need to know? As a result of the success of this internal solution and given that UHN's contract with Compucom expires in 2022, Digital is exploring different options to support the Help Desk service. A decision will be taken this fall.
Update on Accreditation
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Background: Given the disruption of the pandemic, UHN has worked with Accreditation Canada to sharpen the focus of our next accreditation, which will occur from December 6-10, 2021 and focus on the acute services delivered at Toronto General and Toronto Western hospitals. Princess Margaret was accredited prior to the pandemic and some areas of the hospital – Laboratory Medicine being one – have recently completed accreditation, so they will not be included.
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Who presented? Elisa Chimonides (Manager, Accreditation and Partnerships)
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What do I need to know? Accreditation will take place from December 6-10, 2021. To limit the in-person impact, we are proceeding with a hybrid virtual/in-person approach to this visit, comprised of
two virtual days (December 6, 7) where surveyors will meet with the leadership of in-scope clinical teams, followed by
two in-person days (December 8, 9), where the surveyors will then visit the corresponding clinical areas of the teams they met in the first two days.
The last day (December 10) is reserved as a flex day and for surveyor report out. Clinical areas have been identified for the in-person visit, and the overarching Accreditation Working Group, along with 10 sub-Working Groups, have been established. As much as possible, the work will be linked with Synapse implementation activities.
Closing notes
This past weekend, we learned that former Premier Bill Davis died at the age of 92. Premier Davis will be remembered for many things including his support of publically funded education and his ability to work with colleagues of all parties to achieve consensus on the issues of the day. My condolences to his family and friends, many of whom continued to rely on his wise counsel long after he left public office.
Congratulations to TeamUHN's Ian Brown and Nerissa Maxwell, proud parents of Olympic Champions! During the Olympic Games in Tokyo last week, Team Canada won its second straight Olympic bronze medal in the men's 4x100m relay race – powered by sprinters
Jerome Blake,
Aaron Brown,
Andre De Grasse and
Brendan Rodney. At UHN, no one could have been cheering them on more loudly than Aaron's father,
Ian Brown (Ophthalmology Technician, Donald K. Johnson Eye Institute), and Brendan's mother,
Nerissa Maxwell (Nurse Manager, 5B Fell, Toronto Western). Congratulations to both families for this remarkable and exciting accomplishment.
The Joint Department of Medical Imaging (JDMI), in partnership with the Krembil Brain Institute (KBI), welcomes the arrival of two state-of-the-art, Siemens 3.0T MRIs at Toronto Western Hospital (TWH). This weekend, the Siemens Prisma and Vida MRIs were craned and installed in our TWH site. The Vida will be primarily focused on clinical care and the Prisma will contribute to advancing our research activities. The arrival of the MRIs are part of the final phase of the TWH MRI replacement project and was made possible through the generous support of the Slaight Family and the UHN Foundation in addition to UHN's own capital funds. My thanks to all from TeamUHN who worked diligently this past weekend to bring these exciting equipment safely on-site with minimal disruption to operations, especially to members Facilities, Management – Planning, Redevelopment and Operations (FM-PRO), JDMI, KBI and Surgery.
Members of TeamUHN are the lucky winners of National Bank Open tickets. Last week, 10 members of TeamUHN won a pair of tickets to the National Bank Open game, which will take place today, August 9th at 7:00 p.m. We are grateful to Tennis Canada for extending this generous offer to all Toronto-area hospitals and inviting frontline healthcare workers to the game.
Feedback?
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Have a good week,
Kevin
