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.

President’s Blog: My Personal Business Commitments

By Rik Ganderton - President & CEO

My Personal Business Commitments (PBCs) are available here.

I am sharing my PBCs as part of my accountability to the organization. These are the major things that we as an organization have set for ourselves to do this year. They have been developed directly from the Strategic Plan on-a-Page, which set our strategic direction and is posted on our public website and internal Intranet.


As a reminder, you'll recall we've said we intend "to be the best at what we do" and that:
- We will work as a team;
- Live our values every day;
- Relentlessly focus on quality in a health workplace;
- Maintain and strengthen core services and enhance centres of excellence;
- Deliver services within the context of the Central East Local Health Integration Network, Integrated Health Service Plan and Clinical Services Plan; and
- Live within our resources.

My Personal Business Commitments have been approved by our Board of Directors. By sharing these PBCs, we at Rouge Valley are cutting a new path that you are all a big part of.

Open communications has been a key of that path since I had the pleasure of joining the Rouge team in 2007.

I’m publishing my PBCs to help provide greater clarity for us all and to help each of us understand how our varied roles contribute to achieving our strategy at Rouge Valley. By focusing on achievement of these goals we will ensure that the day to day "noise," that we all face, will not distract us from our major objectives.

I want our vice-presidents, chiefs and all physicians, directors, managers and all staff and volunteers to see the very tangible targets the Board and I have set for me and for Rouge Valley itself.

PBCs have also been set by our senior team and are being cascaded throughout the leadership organization so that we are all aligned on our goals. The management team will be sharing their PBCs with their teams. The senior team has shared their individual goals with each other so that there is clarity and understanding between us.

By publishing my PBCs, and later those of our entire management team, all staff and physicians with be better able to work toward our common vision to be the best acute care community hospital.

We will continue to work as a team, at every level of Rouge Valley, to provide the best health care experience for our patients and their families.

PBCs are the tool we will use to provide clarity to the direction we have set our selves and how we will achieve and measure our success on that journey. They also make the links across management and staff, physicians, departments, campuses and disciplines.

The development of PBC's will become and annual exercise for the whole management team so that we have clear alignment of our actions to achieve our strategic intent of being "the best at what we do."

Please feel free to email me (rganderton@rougevalley.ca) any questions or thoughts you have about my PBCs.