QHN MEMBER E-UPDATE - December 13, 2007


Seasons Greetings

The Quality Healthcare Network staff and board, and the Ontario Node of the Safer Healthcare Now! campaign wish you and your family a happy holiday. We would like to take a moment to thank you for your commitment to quality and patient safety. We’ve all had a busy, exciting fall. We hope that the holiday gives you the time you need to renew your energy and revitalize the passion that drives your work.

We look forward to seeing you in the New Year.

Happy Holidays,

GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS

QHN Listserv

Thanks for being a part of our listserv community. We are really delighted to see that this tool is helping you in your improvement efforts. To ensure its best success, we have developed QHN Listserv Decorum which if adopted by all of us, will increase the value of our listserv to you.

QHN Listserv Decorum:

• Only send a message to the entire list when it contains information that everyone can benefit from. Include a signature tag on all messages. Include your name, affiliation, location, and e-mail address.
• Please refrain from sending "thanks" or me/too" using Reply All. It simply fills everyone's mail box.
• If you wish to respond to an individual do this by using your e-mail application's forwarding option and typing in or cutting and pasting in the e-mail address of the individual to whom you want to respond.
• State concisely and clearly the topic of your comments in the subject line. This makes it easier for your colleagues to search the archives by subject.
• Keep your messages short and relevant to your request.
• Include only the relevant portions of the original message in your reply. Delete any header information, and put your response before the original posting.
• If you wish yourself removed from the listserv, or your address has changed email tanya.flanagan@qhn.ca.

QHN EVENTS

Researcher on Call Teleconference: “Leadership and Staff Empowerment” - January 15, 2008, 12:00-12:45 p.m. (EST)

The Quality Healthcare Network and the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation are proud to announce Researcher on Call, a series of four interactive conference calls for healthcare researchers and decision makers designed to accelerate improvements in healthcare.

Please join us for our second Researcher on Call on January 15, 2008 with guest speakers Andrea Seymour, CHE, vice-president of health information and chief information officer at River Valley Health in New Brunswick, and Heather K. Spence Laschinger, RN, PhD, professor and associate director of research, school of nursing, University of Western Ontario.

After the presentations, there will be a brief question and answer period with participants. Copies of the speakers’ presentations, as well as all pertinent information relating to the call, will be made available to participants prior to the call. Therefore, we advise participants to submit questions for the speakers prior to the call. Questions can be sent to Sean Molloy at sean.molloy@qhn.ca.

There is no fee for this innovative initiative, but enrolment is required. Enrolment grants you one telephone connection and unlimited participation at your site. Please register to ensure line availability. The teleconference is limited to 100 lines. More details will follow registration. To register for the Researcher on Call teleconference, please click here. Registration deadline is January 8, 2008

QHN Improvement Fundamentals Workshop - The Model for Rapid Cycle Improvement – January 23, 2008, Southlake Regional Health Centre, Newmarket, Ontario

Responding to member demand for more education opportunities in Quality Improvement, QHN has designed this one day workshop to build capacity for quality improvement in member organizations. Each QHN member is entitled to 3 free seats as promised in your 2007 – 2008 membership renewal. Due to overwhelming demand, we have added this, our fourth workshop, to allow those who have not used their seats an opportunity to do so and for those that have wanted to send more than 3 from their organization, an opportunity to purchase more seats.

This introductory level workshop will help you plan and implement improvement strategies, using the Model for Improvement. This model helps teams focus their improvement efforts and to use small tests of change to accelerate improvement.

To download brochure and registration form click here.

Prospective Tools Learning Series

As announced at the 2007 Fall Forum at Lac Lemay, QHN is planning a Learning Series on Prospective Tools. Building on the Roundtable discussions at our Spring 2007 Symposium, we are striking an Advisory Design Team and currently finalizing membership. If you have expressed an interest in joining the team you will be contacted by Janet Helmer who is leading this project. Our goal is to have the plan and design out to you early in the New Year.

To support this series, QHN is building an exclusive Prospective Tools page on the QHN website, a go-to place for resources, tools and leading practices. Your feedback, ideas and sharing of pertinent resources are always welcome. For more information contact Tanya Flanagan at tanya.flanagan@qhn.ca.

2007 QHN Fall Forum Conference Proceedings

We would like to thank all of those that were able to join us for the 2007 QHN Fall Forum: Fueling the Innovation Engine – Accelerating the Adoption of Improvement on November 20-21, 2007 at Le Hilton, Lac-Leamy, Gatineau, Quebec. Anecdotal feedback on the conference indicates another successful event, but we have not had that many of you complete our online survey evaluation. If you did attend and have not already completed your Forum evaluation, please do so at your earliest convenience by clicking here. Your feedback lets us know how we can serve you better.

For those of you that were not able to attend the Forum, please feel free to download the Forum proceedings below, which are also available online at www.qhn.ca.

Plenary Session Presentations:

Keeping the Engine Running: Sharing Directions for Successful Spread & Sustainability
By Dr. Lynne Maher, Head of Innovation Practice, NHS Institute for Innovation and
Improvement

Spread – an emerging framework from NHS
By Dr. Lynne Maher, Head of Innovation Practice, NHS Institute for Innovation and
Improvement

The NHS Sustainability Model
By Lynne Maher, David Gustafson, Alyson

Emerging Themes in Innovation and Improvement - Data, Design and Delivery- What
are the English up to?
By Dr. Lynne Maher, Head of Innovation Practice, NHS Institute for Innovation and
Improvement

Leveraging Generational Diversity: Challenges and Opportunities. Work-Life Enterprises.
By Nora Spinks, Work-Life Enterprises

Concurrent Session Presentations:

Medication Reconciliation Successes from Bluewater Health
By Karen Riley, Kim Kraeft, Bluewater Health

The Credit Valley Hospital Perinatal Immunization Project
By Cathy Walker & Vanna Boghossian, The Credit Valley Hospital

Operation Clean Sweep: Spread and Sustainability at the Niagara Health System
By Tracey Davey, Marilyn Kalmats & Scott Pierotti, Niagara Health System

Linking Project Management and Quality
By Beverley Tezak & Susan Walsh. Mount Sinai Hospital

Ontario’s Critical Care Strategy: A ‘System Helping the System’ Approach
By Robert McKay, Vanessa Blount, Mary Ellen Salenieks, Julie Trpkovski, Critical Care Secretariat, MOHLTC

Making the Safety Plan Stick: A continued dialogue
By Debbie Barnard, Project Coordinator Safer Healthcare Now!

The World Café: A primer on facilitating your own back home
By Linda Hunter, Director of Quality, The Ottawa Hospital

PARTNER EVENTS

Quality of Life Award – Call for Nominations

The Canadian College of Health Service Executives (CCHSE) invites you to nominate a deserving individual or team for the Quality of Life Award. Deadline to submit nominations is March 3, 2008.

For over a decade, the CCHSE awards have been showcasing the success of exemplary individuals and teams, encouraging knowledge exchange and stimulating replication of best practices across the industry.

Sponsored by Smith & Nephew Inc, the Quality of Life Award honours those who work to improve their patients’ lives through their desire, creativity and dedication. It is a celebration of the human spirit. This award is presented to an individual or team in recognition of acts that have improved the quality of life of their patient(s).

The award winner will receive paid travel and accommodations to attend the National Awards Ceremony on June 1, 2008, in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and a complimentary registration to the National Healthcare Leadership Conference, June 2-3, 2008. In addition, the winner will be profiled in the College’s Celebrating Best Practices brochure, FORUM, the College’s quarterly journal and in Communiqué, their monthly newsletter. For full details and to download the nomination form, please visit www.cchse.org.

OHQC Launches QI Tools and Resources on Website

The Ontario Health Quality Council (OHQC) has launched a series of quality improvement tools and resources on their website. The tools will help organizations define and structure their quality improvement projects, identify sources of quality challenges, monitor and measure against targets, and test and implement ideas for change. Some of the tools available include templates and instructions for using project charters, process mapping, root cause analysis, failure modes & effects analysis, Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles and run charts. In addition, the site provides links to other quality improvement resources. The tools are free to access and can be found at www.ohqc.ca

SAFER HEALTHCARE NOW!

QHN Welcomes the 2007-2008 Ontario Trailblazers

QHN welcomed the 2007-2008 Ontario Trailblazers at this year's Fall Forum. We are pleased to congratulate the 20 QHN member organizations that have nominated their quality improvers to our growing roster of Trailblazers. We are excited to have almost 50% returning Trailblazers from our 2006-2007 program. These remarkable individuals will participate in year-long learning to help support the 361 teams from more than 120 organizations enrolled in the Safer Healthcare Now! campaign in Ontario. Please feel free to contact the Trailblazer in your region. If you have any questions about the program, contact Clara Ballantine at clara.ballantine@qhn.ca. Join us in welcoming the following individuals to this year's program:

EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES

As a benefit of membership, we offer our member organizations the opportunity to post their most current employment opportunities on our website. Please click here, or go to our website for an up-to-date list of quality improvement related jobs. If you have a posting you would like to include, please feel free to send it to tanya.flanagan@qhn.ca.

RECOMMENDED READING

We encourage all of our members to go to the Ontario Health Quality Council's website and read about their new series of quality improvement tools and resources on their website at www.ohqc.ca and click on "Quality Improvement".

About the Quality Healthcare Network:

The Quality Healthcare Network (QHN) is a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering the development and adoption of best practices by its members through education and shared improvement projects. Established in 1992 as the CQI Network, the network grew into the  Quality Healthcare Network in 2003, a member-based organization, which now exceeds over 70 healthcare organizations that share the courage to move beyond status quo, inspired towards excellence in care and service. In 2005, the network became the Ontario lead of the Safer Healthcare Now! campaign, an ambitious pan-Canadian effort aimed at reducing the number of injuries and deaths related to adverse events, such as infections and medication incidents. For more information about QHN, visit the network website at www.qhn.ca

Contact Information

Tanya Flanagan, Communications and Media Relations
Quality Healthcare NetworkOntario Node, Safer Healthcare Now!
790 Bay Street, 9th Floor
Toronto, Ontario M5G 1NB
tel: (416) 351-3704
tanya.flanagan@qhn.ca

790 Bay Street, 9th Floor, Toronto, Ontario M5G 1N8   Phone: 416.351.3760 • Fax: 416.351.3762 • Web: www.qhn.ca