President's New Year's message

(Originally e-mailed on Dec. 23, 2008 by Rik Ganderton)

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to thank you all for your efforts this year.

For those of you who made it to the Town Halls on December 18th (5mb PDF) you heard about some of our successes. We have gone through a lot of change this year, some of which was quite difficult, but I think we are starting to see the benefits. Our financial situation is improving although there continues to be hard work to do on this front. We are finalizing our operating plan for 2009/2010 and this will be rolled out in late February. Preliminary indications are that our H-SAA and Deficit Elimination Targets will be achieved.

In 2008 we completed both the Mental Health Supportive Housing Project and the new Birthing and Newborn Centre at RVC. Both of these were major milestones for our organization. The results of the dreadful fire at mental health supportive housing will be fixed in 2009 and it is thanks to the timely intervention of residents and RVHS staff as well as the quality of construction and workmanship that injuries and damage were minimized.

We have embraced the patient and staff safety agenda and on the patient side we are seeing improvement in our HSMR and we continue to strive to minimize our C. Diff, MRSA and VRE Hospital Acquired Infections. In the New Year we will be focusing on the roll out and public reporting of various Safer Healthcare Now! measures including Central Line Infections, Ventilator Associated Pneumonia and Medication Reconciliation. We must be relentless in our pursuit of zero harm to patients and staff. On the staff side we must continue to focus on the elimination of preventable injuries from lifts, turns and falls. All of these can be eliminated with training and individual vigilance and care. The roll out of ARC must continue so that all staff and physicians have been engaged and we must live these values with each other every day.

I also think our culture is starting to change. The introduction of LEAN, which is the new way we manage the organization going forward, is starting to be felt. We are seeing and hearing more engagement of front line staff in redesign of processes to eliminate waste. We are seeing enthusiasm and engagement at all levels of the organization. Our agenda for the further roll out of LEAN in 2009 is aggressive and many more areas of RVHS will become actively involved. Please get involved yourselves – take the training that’s offered and encourage all your staff to join in. This really is the basis of our future success.

Remember our four focus areas:

* Put patients first – provide the best patient care experience for our patients and their families;
* Earn our reputation as the best everyday;
* Eliminate waste;
* We are one team inspired and involved.

2009 will be an exciting time for us. The CE LHIN will be issuing its Acute Care Clinical Services Plan, we will embark on a Strategic Planning exercise, and we will continue to try to engage our communities using the newly recruited Community Advisory Group to the Board as well as our more traditional methods of community events and speaking to community groups. Our major building project at RVAP will see the opening of the new Emergency Department. We will have fixed the boilers at RVC and major roof leak issues at RVC and RVAP. By executing effectively on the 2009/2010 operating plan, we will generate the financial resources to start to address some of our capital equipment needs and fix up some of our buildings. This will not happen over night but we will make a good start.

From a program development side we will start the implementation of our Post Construction Operating Plans for the Birthing and Newborn Centre and the RVAP redevelopment. These plans will be negotiated with the LHIN and the MOHLTC during 2009 and we will start to see the ramp up of staffing and volumes once they are approved. We have requested that the CELHIN fund 29 additional Acute Care Medical Beds for the RVAP site which are desperately needed now and even more so with the ED expansion. We continue to work with the LHIN regarding other services and are continuing discussions on Dialysis and our role in Cancer Service Delivery. We continue to participate in the various wait time initiatives and are actively looking for opportunities to expand our services in these areas. We will continue to strengthen our role as the CELHIN 401 corridor Regional Cardiac Services Provider and our pursuit of an MRI for RVAP will go ahead unabated. We will continue to look for other opportunities to serve our communities and provide the services they need in the best way we can.

Thank you to all of you for your help and support – it has to be a team effort for us to achieve our goals so far.

I wish you and your families a safe and happy holiday season and a happy, healthy and successful New Year. Please cascade this message to staff in your areas and post on notice and information boards


Rik Ganderton, President and CEO

Update: Birthing Centre / Town Halls / Mental Health / Socials

By Rik Ganderton President and CEO

I have a few pieces of news to update you on today.

* Town Halls
First, sorry it's been so long since we've had a Town Hall. Scheduling of various meetings has got in the way. We will resume our regular monthly staff-physician-volunteer Town Halls on Thursday, Dec. 18 at each hospital campus:
- 9:30 a.m. at RVC's Dr. Bruce Johnston Conference Room; and
- 2 p.m. at RVAP's Conference Rooms B and C.

* Birthing and Newborn Centre at RVC
My congratulations to our RVHS Foundation team for their successful events on November 20 when volunteers were thanked for their tremendous $1 million support for the new centre and an evening event at which key donors and supporters were recognized. I would also like to acknowledge the work of the whole Women's and Children's Program team for all their efforts in making the new Birthing Centre a reality. While all have worked tirelessly I would especially like to thank
· Julie Goldstein, Program Director (now with the TMO)
· Sue Fyfe, Program Director
· Penny Katz, Manager, Perinatal
· Sheri Ferkl, Manager, Paediatrics
· Rose Owen, Clinical Practice Leader
· Debbie MacInnes, Clinical Practice Leader
· Debbie Lopresti, Resource Nurse, Perinatal
· Kim Eeuwes, Resource Nurse, NICU
· Amer Syed, Manager, Respiratory Therapy
· Dan Flood, Purchasing
· Nicki Modeste, Purchasing
· Rick Gowrie, Senior Director
· Ed Carroll, Manager - Plant Admin, Projects
· Martin Green, Manager, Security
· Siamak Sadr, Director
· Teresa Alzner, Resource Nurse, Paediatrics
· Kim Kaizer, Clinical Practice Leader, RVAP
· Mary Ellen Stevenson, Manager, RVAP

We look forward to having the official grand opening of the centre early in the 2009 and subject to the availability of government leaders. We'll announce the date as soon as possible.
It is indeed a beautiful facility which we can be proud of.

* Mental Health improvements
Our implementation of the plan announced in March continues to move forward.
Rouge Valley also continues to look for opportunities presented by the improved mental health service model.
We have asked the Central East LHIN (in June 2008) to fund the hospital for 29 additional acute care medical beds to go into the space being vacated as part of our improved model of care. It is our intention to house 22 of these beds on RVAP's 3 West, if they are funded.
We desperately need this medical bed capacity to improve the flow of patients through our emergency department. Durham region has some of the lowest rates of admission to inpatient medical beds in the province. When compared to other centres it appears we are substantially under resourced in terms of inpatient acute medicine bed capacity.
We'll let you know when we have an answer from the Central East LHIN on our request.

* Rouge Holiday Socials
I hope to see you at our annual Rouge Holiday Socials for all staff, physicians, board members, and volunteers.
The socials are:
- Dec. 15, 2-4 p.m. at RVAP’s Conference Rooms B and C. Plus we'll have a traveling minstrel and holiday food going floor to floor from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
- Dec. 16, 2-4 p.m.. at RVC's Dr. Bruce Johnston Room. Plus we'll have a traveling minstrel and holiday food going floor to floor from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
This is purely an end of the year social event. I'll put way my projector and PowerPoint. Please come and enjoy some good food, good music and equally good conversation!

Prevent the flu in you and in patients! / New Echo

By Rik Ganderton - President & CEO
I'm pleased once again to get my flu shot and encourage us all to do so.
To get his year's campaign going, you'll see that many managers and Board members have already rolled up their sleeves to encourage everyone at Rouge to get their shot. This is the best way to prevent us from getting sick with the flu and to prevent spreading it to our patients.
Thank you all for rolling up your sleeves starting next week at flu shot clinics for staff, physicians and volunteers at Rouge Valley. It's your personal decision, but please do consider getting it for your health and for that of our patients.
And my thanks to RN Amanda Fyfe for making it so painless!
...

President's Blog
By Rik Ganderton - President and CEO
Oct. 31, 2008

Even the Echo is transforming ...

Welcome to our new echo.

More than simply a smartly re-designed magazine, echo is now serving a wider audience — reverberating and spreading the good word about the new Rouge, which all of you are so busy transforming.
echo will continue to be a newsletter for staff-physicians-volunteers. But now it will also serve as a community magazine, mailed six times a year (electronically and by post) to health care partners, political leaders and more than 350 community organizations in east Toronto and west Durham.

Please have a good read through this issue and send any comments to Public Affairs and Community Relations Director David Brazeau at dbrazeau@rougevalley.ca. As with everything we do at Rouge, we want it to be the best – reflecting your tremendous ongoing work to constantly improve patient care!

In this issue, we continue to focus on the transformation that is well underway at both Rouge Valley hospital campuses. At our Oct. 1 Transformation Celebration Town Hall, we showcased the successes of our first four kaizen event teams. This was an opportunity for team leaders to showcase the positive changes their teams achieved for patients and for each other. We take an inside look at these kaizen events in our cover story, but I would like to highlight some of the biggest achievements here and offer my own “thank you” to all of our kaizen team members.

RVAP Emergency Department 5S
Clinical Practice Leader Tina Shoemaker showed us how the Rouge Valley Ajax and Pickering emergency department organized itself more efficiently for patient care, by making these key changes:
Cleaned and organized the working environment;
Conducted daily 5S audits (sort, set in order, scrub/shine, standardize and sustain); and
Ongoing monitoring of sustainability.
I want to underline this: sustainability is the key to all kaizen event successes! We must be vigilant in maintaining the truly terrific changes you have made.

RVAP Emergency Department Lab TAT
Senior Technologist Renee Liscio demonstrated how this team improved turn-around time (TAT) for blood and urine specimens. The key changes achieved for our patients were:
Visual management system for specimen pick up was established;
A back-up system was set up to inform our patient services reps that pickup was required; and
Standard work was established for all staff involved.

RVC Medicine Discharge Room TAT
Physiotherapist Louie Lu shared these key turn-around time changes achieved by his kaizen team:
Discharge TAT visual management board established;
Standard work created for staff members to improve patient flow; and
Linen carts have been reorganized using the 5S principles.

RVC Medicine Discharge Process
Outpatient and Corporate Rehab Manager Karl Wong showed us how his team improved flow, coordination of discharge process on the RVC Medicine 9W unit, through these key changes:
Discharge planning visual management board was put in place;
Physician communication tool was created for patient charts; and
Signs were made to educate patients and families about discharge days and times.

Thank you to all team members and to our kaizen process owners: Program Director of Mental Health and Emergency Cheryl Williams; and Program Director of Medicine and Critical Care Margot DaCosta. I would also like to thank all staff, physicians and volunteers for working as a team, at every level of Rouge Valley, to provide the best health care experience for our patients and their families.

And to all our other readers, I hope you enjoy this first issue of the new echo and will continue to come back to these pages to learn more about how Rouge Valley is working to be the best at what we do.

Please feel free to email any questions or comments you have for me to rganderton@rougevalley.ca.

For more from the president:
internal—check out the President’s Page on the RVHS intranet site
external—visit the RVHS Blog at rvhs.blogspot.com

Rouge continues to move forward: wins second court challenge

By Rik Ganderton - President and CEO

Rouge Valley has won its second legal challenge to its Deficit Elimination Plan (DEP).

The Divisional Court has recently ruled in favour of the hospital in a challenge brought forward by the provincial head office of the Ontario Nurses Association. The court ruled that the decision to approve the DEP by the Rouge Valley Board of Directors was an “internal” and "reasonable” decision.

The court accepted the hospital’s arguments that it had consulted about its plan to reduce the deficit. This summer the court also ruled in favour of the Central East LHIN and Rouge Valley in a similar challenge brought forward by OPSEU - Read our August 2008 news release.

This means we can continue to move forward in our well-publicized plan, of March 25, 2008, to fix Rouge Valley's historic financial challenges.

As we've said at leadership forums with managers and Town Halls with all staff, it is thanks to the engagement and participation of staff and physicians that Rouge Valley is now heading in a positive direction on finances and, most importantly, in transforming itself into being the best at what we do for patients.

The complete ruling is available here.