Good Monday morning,

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.

Quality and Safety Lorna Mendoza, housekeeper on TeamUHN, helps save a life: Last week, Lorna from our Toronto Western site came across a public washroom door that was locked. She knocked twice but heard no response. Sensing that something was wrong, Lorna unlocked the door and found an unresponsive patient inside. Lorna immediately initiated a Code Blue and our capable colleagues on the code team helped revive the patient. Thank you Lorna for showing us what it means to be a dedicated member of TeamUHN!

Technology Health Information System (HIS) Update – Request for Proposal (RFP) issued: Last week, we successfully issued an RFP for our new HIS to a shortlist of vendors which means we now have our HIS requirements set so that potential vendors may respond with their interest. Thank you to the many, many contributors who helped build our RFP. We are now in the procurement "blackout" period which means we cannot discuss HIS-related dialogue with those on our shortlist. Protecting the integrity of this process is critical to our success in getting the best HIS possible for UHN. When I arrived last year, I asked members of TeamUHN for one thing that would make a difference in their work and the resounding answer was a new HIS – we're getting there! One of our main areas of focus over the next year will be ensuring that our clinical work is supported by our new HIS.

People and Culture Responding to your Open Forum feedback (video here for those who haven't watched yet): Thank you to everyone who filled out the survey. Results show that 87% of you prefer asking and voting on questions in advance – so we will keep this as our practice moving forward. Great to see frontline colleagues participating and I am glad to hear that members of TeamUHN appreciate the transparency and frankness of our Open Forums. I also know the importance of communicating the actions we are taking in response to the issues that were raised. None of our important challenges come with a quick fix but all leaders at UHN will be asked to renew their commitment to communicating regularly and transparently with their teams. Thank you for your patience and please continue to share your feedback.

2. Recruiting next generation leaders for UHN's Strategy Forum

In a previous update, I mentioned bringing together next generation leaders to form an advisory committee to help support UHN's Strategic Plan – "A Healthier World". For now, we are calling this group our Strategy Forum. I'm thrilled to see so much interest and know many of you are interested in applying – so please do so here! Every three months, this committee will meet with our programs and departments for one full day to provide feedback on their work. Our Strategy Forum will be fairly small in size to better support productive discussion but rest assured, there will be many other opportunities to engage and provide input. FYI applications close March 20.

3. What we discussed at our Executive Leadership Forum meeting

For those who may not know, UHN’s Executive Leadership Forum meetings are held bi-weekly and we've started the practice of sharing the topics of discussion – part of TeamUHN's commitment to communicating openly and transparently!

  • Quality Improvement Program (QIP): Deciding what quality areas we are committed to improving on at UHN. A report on our QIP will be made available to the public online.
  • Financing Update: Discussed the approach to UHN's multi-year financial strategy.
  • Code Silver (Active Shooter) Update: Educational presentation.
  • FM-PRO (Facilities Management – Planning, Redevelopment and Operations) Update: Discussions about UHN's year end and the work needed to balance.

Have a good week,

Kevin

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