Trillium Health Partners Shines the Light on Patient Safety

TRILLIUM HEALTH PARTNERS SHINES THE LIGHT ON PATIENT SAFETY
Annual awards recognize innovations that improve quality of care for patients

MISSISSAUGA, ON  (Thursday, November 2) –  Trillium Health Partners is celebrating Canadian Patient Safety Week by encouraging patients and health care providers to shine the light on patient safety by identifying ways of working together to create a safer environment for patients and health care providers alike.

As part of this year’s Patient Safety Week Closing Ceremonies, Trillium Health Partners presented its fourth Annual Hazel McCallion Quality in Health Care Awards, and third 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:

• Hazel McCallion Quality in Care Award – New Improvement – Improving care for seniors admitted to the Mental Health Unit with BPSD (Behavioural and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia). By focusing on innovative therapies such as music therapy and decreasing the use of restraints and medications, re-admission rates for patients decreased from 3.2% last year to 0% between January – July, 2017.
• Hazel McCallion Quality in Care Award – Sustained 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. For more information on PPATH: http://bit.ly/2xxME4l
• Advancing Patient Safety Award – Standardizing Suicide Risk Screening. By adopting the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS) as a suicide risk screening tool at THP, this initiative establishes a standard, efficient approach to help decrease suicide rates of patients post-discharge from the hospital’s Emergency Mental Health Zone. The Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS), the most evidence-supported tool of its kind, is a simple series of questions that anyone can use anywhere in the world to prevent suicide. For more information: http://cssrs.columbia.edu/

​This year, Trillium Health Partners is the recipient of the Canada Patient Safety Institute Innovations in Patient Safety Education Award – Power of a System, recognizing its Quality Improvement module which they developed and is part of the of the Medical Psychiatry Collaborative Care Certificate (MP3C). For more information, please visit: http://bit.ly/2xNMt4f

QUICK FACTS

• Trillium Health Partners (THP) is one of the busiest hospitals in Ontario with over 1.6 million patient visits
• Last year, THP performed 63,230 surgeries, delivered 8,634 babies and cared for 270,929 patients in our Emergency Departments (ED) and Urgent Care Centre

Trillium Health Partners’ Safety Culture includes:

• Partnering with patients – strengthening the involvement and engagement of our patients to learn about how THP can deliver even safer care by including patient representation within key THP committees and engaging patients via patient advisory groups
• Embedding quality and safety education into the onboarding orientation for all THP staff
• Participation of THP physicians and professional staff in mandatory Quality Improvement and Patient Safety rounds
• Attendance of THP staff at daily quality huddles to identify safety issues on units and pursue improvements

QUOTES
“Trillium Health Partners’ staff and physicians are dedicated to providing a safe environment for every patient who walks through our doors. We strive for an exceptional experience for our patients, and for them to have the best outcomes for their health – it’s part of our everyday safety culture,” said Alison Freeland, Vice President, Quality, Education & Patient Relations. “Everyone has a role to play in ensuring patient safety, and we work together with our patients to identify and act on opportunities where we can improve patient care every day.”

“At Trillium Health Partners, one way we shine the light on patient safety is by paying attention to opportunities to do better,” says Natasha Milijasevic, Director, Quality & Patient Safety, Trillium Health Partners. “When we create a culture where raising and discussing an issue is encouraged, we can continue to raise the bar on care quality and service excellence for our patients and families,” she says.
 
“As a patient and family member of Trillium Health Partners’ Board Quality and Program Effectiveness Committee, I feel I am contributing to our community in a meaningful way – I feel that by providing my feedback, I am able to be that bridge between our community and our local hospital,” says Alison Sant-Porter, patient representative, Trillium Health Partners’ Board Quality and Program Effectiveness Committee. “At the committee meetings, I see that the hospital staff who are at the table are sincere, caring and concerned about their patients and are genuinely interested making a difference.”

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 and is an associate member of the Toronto Academic Health Science Network.

About Canadian Patient Safety Week
The Canadian Patient Safety Institute (CPSI) leads a national annual campaign called Patient Safety Week 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.

For more information, please contact:

Ania Basiukiewicz, Advisor, Communications, Public Affairs and Partnerships
Trillium Health Partners
Cell: 416-278-7966
Email: ania.basiukiewicz@thp.ca

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