(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