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Centre Stage:

Lindsay McGee, Quality and Patient Safety Coordinator, Huron Perth Healthcare Alliance and Ontario Trailblazer, Ontario Node, Safer Healthcare Now!

As part of our new membership benefit package and our ongoing commitment to collaboration, we are giving impassioned improvers within the Network centre stage. We would like to get to know the faces of your organization. If you have a member that should get centre stage, let us know.

“Healthcare is a system that will continuously evolve as research and best practices change. Quality improvement is essential in keeping up to date with these changes and ensuring that as an organization we are providing our patients with the highest quality of care.”

I'm Lindsay McGee. I joined the Huron Perth Healthcare Alliance in 2006. The Alliance was formed in July 2003 through a partnership agreement of four hospital corporations, including, Clinton Public Hospital, St. Marys Memorial Hospital, Seaforth Community Hospital, and Stratford General Hospital. I am currently the Quality and Patient Safety Coordinator for all four sites, which includes coordinating accreditation and all Safer Healthcare Now! activities.

I am a certified registered nurse that has been working in healthcare for about six years now. My first three years were spent as a front line nurse. This experience provided me with a clear understanding of the prevailing patient safety challenges in healthcare and motivated me to step into my current role.

Healthcare is a system that will continuously evolve as research and best practices change. Quality improvement is essential in keeping up to date with these changes and ensuring that as an organization we are providing our patients with the highest quality of care.

"This year I have had the privilege of being an Ontario Trailblazer. Being a Trailblazer was an important part of getting our organization's Safer Healthcare Now! interventions started."

The Trailblazer experience has provided me with a great opportunity to learn from other organizations that have had success implementing the Safer Healthcare Now! interventions. I have been able to learn from these organizations, both what has worked for them and what hasn't.

Being one of a growing network of Trailblazers has granted me access to useful tools and strategies developed by other organizations working toward the same end. I have also been exposed to patient safety resources such as educational sessions and communities of practice.  But by far the most
valuable thing the Trailblazer experience has granted me, is access to experts in the field.

"At Huron Perth Health Alliance we are proud to say that we have had some good success implementing the Surgical Site Infection (SSI) bundle, one of the ten Safer Healthcare Now! interventions."

We started to implement this intervention in February 2008. The year isn't even out and our SSI Team has seen a huge improvement in antibiotic administration times, and since making changes we have consistently been meeting the 60-minute time frame, 95% of the time. We have even had some months with 100% compliance. Infection rates are definitely on the decline. Our SSI Team has also made enormous strides in documentation. We have moved to an online documentation of antibiotic administration time as well as the preoperative pause. This process allows for easy data collection, and makes it at the forefront of the nursing staff's minds.

"I believe that by sponsoring me as an Ontario Trailblazer, Huron Perth Health Alliance has demonstrated their organizational commitment to patient safety and quality improvement."

For any organization hoping to implement any of the ten Safer Healthcare Now! interventions, I would highly recommend that they sponsor a Trailblazer. It has been an invaluable experience for myself, and has been fundamental in the early successes of our organization's Safer Healthcare Now! effort.  It has also been instrumental as our organization prepares to meet the patient safety public reporting requirements mandated by the province.

Huron Perth Healthcare Alliance (HPHA) is a four hospital alliance located in Southwestern Ontario, serving a direct population of 139,760 and a geographical area of 5,626 square kilometers. They have 33 surgical beds and over 8,000 day surgery patients per year. They provide orthopedic, general surgery, gynecology, opthalmalogy, ENT, urology, plastics, and dental services.

 

 

Centre Stage Index

To view past profiles of impassioned improvers within the Network, click the one that you want to read.

December, 2007, Gordon Milak from Southwest Community Care Access Centre, London, Ontario
January, 2008, Glenna Raymond from Whitby Mental Health Centre, Whitby, Ontario
February, 2008, Michael Heenan from St. Joseph’s Healthcare, Hamilton, Ontario
Spring, 2008, Carol Annett from VHA Home HealthCare, Ontario
Summer, 2008, Ben Chan from Ontario Health Quality Council, Ontario
September, 2008, Lindsay McGee from Huron Perth Healthcare Alliance, Stratford, Ontario