Good Monday morning,
I'll start by thanking our Patient Partners for helping us work on UHN's strategic plan which is entering the final phase. Their input – in addition to all the great insights you've shared through
UHNstrategicplan.ca and the annual site BBQs thus far – will help us chart a successful future. I had a chance to review the feedback and was thrilled, but not surprised, to see so many compliments about our staff. Thank you for your ongoing dedication to transforming the lives of those we have the privilege to serve.
I also read some comments about what our patients and caregivers would like to see more of in the future:
- "I need a hospital that has no problem reaching out to others to create a plan that meets my needs as a caregiver and does the best it can for my loved one".
- "I need a hospital that listens and remembers the humane side of the medical system".
- "I need a health care system that isn't afraid to admit things could be done better and to ensure hard lessons learned are spread across staff and not forgotten, especially when it's behavioural and could educate others."
These are expectations I know we all aspire to and our goal is to create a strategic plan that will empower everyone to support the needs of those we serve, as well as support all UHN staff. Quality work life and wellness will be key ingredients to our success! Our next step is to hold focus groups with patients in September to discuss UHN's future in more detail. I look forward to joining and hearing from them directly.
Next, I'll share the latest results from our
Organizational Scorecard
[Editor's Note: Link is no longer available] which helps keep track of our performance and ability to serve patients and staff.
-
We're doing well in many areas including Alternate Level of Care (ALC) rate and delivery of capital projects on time (and on budget!). Thanks to all teams for your hard work! There are some areas where we're not doing as well though such as deferred maintenance renewal and average acute length of hospital stay compared to expected length of stay. We'll see what we've learned in these areas over the past quarter and what we could do differently moving forward.
-
Our scorecard plays an important role as we collaborate with Premier Doug Ford and Minister Christine Elliott in the mandate of ending hallway medicine. We have a responsibility to show them what results they can continue to expect from UHN. In doing so I believe they will see UHN as an organization worthy of further investment. Our ideas and aligned actions will improve the patient experience. Understandably, our political and Ontario Public Service colleagues look to a healthy scorecard to demonstrate taxpayers dollars are deployed wisely and efficiently. If you see opportunities to improve on how we use these precious resources, please share them with me and your program and department leaders. It's important to note we're using quantitative indicators which will allow funders to see how we're doing in a measurable and comparable way. In the future, our scorecard will reflect UHN's new strategic plan which will be aligned to provincial priorities and include qualitative metrics as well.
Last week, I joined Dr. Heather Ross (Director of Ted Rogers Centre of Excellence in Heart Function)
and her team in their meeting with the NCE (Networks of Centres of Excellence)
Expert Panel. For those who aren't aware, NCE is an initiative of Canada's Tri-Council Agencies so this was a great opportunity to share the remarkable work we do with some of our major funders for research. Dr. Ross and team presented their vision for reducing the burden of heart failure across Canada – an ambitious and worthwhile initiative known as TRANSFORM HF – and I was privileged to present on why UHN is the ideal host institution for this type of complex and large-scale collaborative.
Finally,
hearty congratulations to Dr. Michael Fehlings on his appointment as President of the International Neurotrauma Society. This news was announced at the recent NeuroTrauma2018 conference in Toronto which he co-chaired. I'm told it's the largest neurotrauma conference so I'm especially glad to hear UHN had such a strong presence. Thanks to
Drs. Charles Tator, Sukhvinder Kalsi-Ryan, Milos Popovic, Philippe Monnier, Mohammad Khazaei, Alex Laliberte, Christopher Ahuja and of course
Michael Fehlings for sharing your work with the international neurotrauma community. I hear their talks were well received – wonderful and important to have recognition from respected peers!
Have a good week,
Kevin
