For immediate release
TRILLIUM HEALTH PARTNERS ENCOURAGES PATIENTS TO SPEAK UP FOR PATIENT SAFETY
Hospital awards initiatives that improve quality of care for patients
MISSISSAUGA, ON (Thursday, October 27) – Trillium Health Partners is celebrating Canadian Patient Safety Week by encouraging patients and health care providers to speak up for patient safety and recognizing achievements in its ongoing commitment to quality care.
“Our patients and their families are an important part of the health care team, whose contribution helps to ensure high quality, safe care,” said Alison Freeland, Vice President, Quality, Education & Patient Relations. “Creating a culture of open dialogue within our organization and with our patients improves health outcomes. We encourage patients, families, health care teams and leaders working at our hospital, to speak up for patient safety, and ask questions that help promote safe care.”
As part of this year’s Patient Safety Week Closing Ceremonies, Trillium Health Partners presented its third Annual Hazel McCallion Quality in Health Care Awards, and second annual Advancing Patient Safety Award. The awards celebrate teams within the hospital who have demonstrated exceptional work in advancing high quality safe care for patients over the past year. The award winners are (see boiler plate for more information):
- New Improvement – Putting Patients at the Heart (PPATH): A Seamless Journey for Cardiac Surgery (Mississauga Hospital). PPATH is an innovative partnership between Trillium Health Partners and Saint Elizabeth Healthcare with the goal of helping cardiac surgery patients better transition from hospital to home.
- Sustained Improvement – Improving Pathology Diagnostics for Breast Cancer Patients (Queensway Health Centre). This initiative created a collaborative team model between our Queensway Health Centre and Mississauga Hospital teams that helped breast cancer patients undergoing surgery receive more timely diagnostic testing.
- Advancing Patient Safety – Reducing Alarm Fatigue in the Intensive Care Unit (Credit Valley Hospital). Monitors at the patient’s bedside while they are in intensive care (ICU) are so sensitive that they often sound alarms needlessly, such as when a patient moves in bed. As a result, nurses and doctors working in the ICU can get ‘alarm fatigue’ and may miss real warnings. Trillium Health Partners’ Credit Valley Hospital’s ICU staff found a solution that helped reduce needless alarm sounds by 13% per patient, daily.
“As a patient member of Trillium Health Partners’ Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Committee, it is clear to me that Trillium Health Partners works hard to prevent any unintended harm to patients. The committee regularly discusses improvement opportunities for many areas such as medication safety, infection prevention, falls prevention, and other issues that can arise around safety. This year, as a judge for the Hazel McCallion Award in Quality of Care and the Advancing Patient Safety Awards, I have been impressed by the terrific variety of improvement projects submitted by hospital staff, representing so many different areas of care and helping to improve the experiences of thousands of patients the hospital serves,” says Dave Burns, patient member, Trillium Health Partners’ QIPS Committee.
Every day, Trillium Health Partners’ staff and physicians are dedicated to providing a safe environment for every patient who walks through the hospital’s doors. Everyone has a role to play in ensuring patient safety – that’s why the theme of Patient Safety Week at Trillium Health Partners this year is Speak Up for Patient Safety, with the goal of encouraging patients, families and hospital staff to ask questions that promote safer care. This enables patients to better follow their treatment plan and understand how to safely take new medications, and helps them share specific details about their medical history that can be relevant to their current treatment.
“Quality is part of our culture at Trillium Health Partners. We strive for an exceptional experience for our patients, and for them to have the best outcomes for their health,” said Dr. Amir Ginzburg, Chief of Quality, Trillium Health Partners. “Discussions about quality and safety happen every single day – every unit has a daily quality huddle where they discuss key areas related to quality and safety, like hand hygiene or medication safety.”
About Trillium Health Partners’ Patient Safety Week Award Winners
New Improvement – Putting Patients at the Heart (PPATH): A Seamless Journey for Cardiac Surgery (Mississauga Hospital). PPATH is an innovative partnership between Trillium Health Partners and Saint Elizabeth Healthcare with the goal of helping cardiac surgery patients better transition from hospital to home. Health care teams at Saint Elizabeth and Trillium Health Partners have access to a single electronic record for each patient using a dashboard where they can view real time information and track their patients across the continuum of care, greatly improving the patient’s experience after surgery. Saint Elizabeth nurses can also consult with and Trillium Health Partners’ cardiac team right from the patient’s home using secure phones and tablets, and patients can access a 24-hour phone line where questions and concerns can be addressed without visiting the Emergency Department.
Sustained Improvement – Improving Pathology Diagnostics for Breast Cancer Patients (Queensway Health Centre). This initiative created a collaborative team model between our Queensway Health Centre and Mississauga Hospital teams that helped breast cancer patients undergoing surgery receive more timely diagnostic testing.
Advancing Patient Safety – Reducing Alarm Fatigue in the Intensive Care Unit (Credit Valley Hospital). Monitors at the patient’s bedside while they are in intensive care (ICU) are so sensitive that they often sound alarms needlessly, such as when a patient moves in bed. Research shows that often, alarms sound unnecessarily and require no immediate action from caregivers. As a result, nurses and doctors working in the ICU can get ‘alarm fatigue’ and may miss real warnings. Trillium Health Partners’ ICU team adjusted default alarm settings, identified additional daily maintenance opportunities, and reviewed alarm functionality – this helped reduce unnecessary alarm sounds at Trillium Health Partners’ Credit Valley Hospital’s ICU by 13% per patient, per day, making sure staff were better prepared to respond to alarms directing them to patients who needed more immediate attention.
About Trillium Health Partners
Trillium Health Partners is one of the largest community-based acute care facilities in Canada. Comprised of Credit Valley Hospital, the Mississauga Hospital and the Queensway Health Centre, Trillium Health Partners serves the growing and diverse populations of Mississauga, West Toronto and surrounding communities. Trillium Health Partners is a teaching hospital affiliated with the University of Toronto. Trillium Health Partners is an associate member of the Toronto Academic Health Science Network. The hospital is also home to the Institute for Better Health, a research institute focused on improving health care for patients, the community and the system as a whole.
About Canadian Patient Safety Week
Patient Safety week is led by Canadian Patient Safety Institute (CPSI) and is a national annual campaign with the goal of improving patient safety and quality and engaging health care providers, patients, families and communities to work together to improve patient safety. This year’s national theme was Questions Save Lives, focusing on the types of questions that should be asked to make care safer.
For more information, please contact:
Cailin Rodgers
Senior Communications Advisor
(905) 848-7580 ext. 1687
Cell: 647-628-8777
cailin.rodgers@trilliumhealthpartners.ca
www.trilliumhealthpartners.ca
