SHN MEMBER E-UPDATE - December 19, 2007

Safer Healthcare Now! (SHN) is an ambitious pan-Canadian patient safety campaign to implement six targeted interventions in health care organizations that have been proven to prevent avoidable adverse events. The Ontario Node of the Safer Healthcare Now! campaign is supported by the Quality Healthcare Network (QHN). To date we have 120 organizations enrolled in the campaign, with 363 teams participating in the six interventions. For more information on the campaign, email info@qhn.ca. Help us build quality improvement capacity in Ontario and share our new E-Update with your colleagues.

HIGHLIGHTS:

• The Ontario Node Launches the 2007-2008 Ontario Trailblazer Program
• RNAO and SHN Announce a New Breakthrough Series Collaborative on Falls Prevention
• Current Enrollment in the Ontario Node
• New Measurement Worksheets Now Available
• New Classification of SHN Teams: Active or Inactive
• QHN Offers Improvement Fundamentals Workshop - The Model for Rapid Cycle Improvement
• 5th National Learning Series for Safer Healthcare Now! - Building Momentum for the Future: Taking the Next Step in Patient Safety
• 2007 Halifax 7 Symposium Proceedings, Speaker Presentations

Seasons Greetings

The staff of the Ontario Node of the Safer Healthcare Now! campaign and the Quality Healthcare Network 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 ANNOUNCMENTS

The Ontario Node Launches the 2007-2008 Ontario Trailblazer Program

At this year's QHN Fall Forum, the Ontario Node launched the 2007-2008 Ontario Trailblazer Program. 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 363 teams from the 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:

RNAO and SHN Announce a New Breakthrough Series Collaborative on Falls Prevention - A Message from Irmajean Bajnok

The Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (RNAO), in partnership with Safer Healthcare Now!, is leading a new Breakthrough Series Collaborative for Long-Term Care facilities across Canada! We are delighted to announce this initiative which has the goal of reducing falls and injury from falls in residents in long term care facilities.

A special invitation is being extended to you, as a member of the Long-Term Care sector, for this unique, first time opportunity to be involved in a national collaborative that we believe will make a difference to the quality of care and quality of life of your residents.

Enrollment for this exciting opportunity is now open. The details of this initiative are provided in the attached Call to Action. We are looking forward to working with you and Safer Healthcare Now! to improve resident safety in Canadian long-term care facilities.

Warm Regards,

Irmajean Bajnok, RN, MScN, PhD

Chair, Safer Healthcare Now! National Falls Collaborative in Long-Term Care
Director, International Affairs and Best Practice Guidelines Project Registered Nurses Association of Ontario

Click here to download the Call to Action. For more information, go to the campaign website at www.saferhealthcarenow.ca.

CURRENT ENROLLMENT IN THE ONTARIO NODE

Percentage of Ontario Teams by Intervention, December 2007

Number of Ontario and National Teams by Intervention, December 2007

SHN CALLS & EVENTS

Audio File Now Available: Ontario Node Open Line Call (December 5, 2007) featuring Dr. Claude LaFlamme, Anesthesiologist, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, Ontario

Click here to download audio file or go to:
http://www.saferhealthcarenow.ca/Default.aspx?folderId=42&contentId=136

National Call on Medication Reconciliation - January 16, 2008, 12:00-1:00 pm (EST)

Toll-Free Dial In: 1 (866) 443-4188
Confirmation #: 5072647

National Call on SSI prophylaxis: perspective from the University of Toronto Teaching Hospitals –
January 23, 2008, 12:00-1:00 pm (EST)

Toll-Free Dial In: 1 (866) 443-4188
Confirmation #: 6321694

Ontario Node Open Line Call - Prevention of CLI - February 5, 2008, 12:00-1:00 pm (EST)

Local: (416) 642-5212
Toll-Free Dial In: 1 (866) 321-6651

National Call on AMI - February 5, 2008, 12:00-1:00 pm (EST)

Details to be posted later this week on the AMI Communities of Practice.

National Call on Surveillance: Finding out what works for you? - February 25, 2008, 2:00-3:00 pm (EST)

Toll-Free Dial In: 1 (866) 443-4188
Confirmation #: 7123468

5th National Learning Series for Safer Healthcare Now! - Building Momentum for the Future: Taking the Next Step in Patient Safety

April 1&2, 2008
Register at www.saferhealthcarenow.ca

For more information on any of these or other SHN Calls or Events, check the campaign website at www.saferhealthcarenow.ca or feel free to contact Tanya Flanagan at (416) 351-3704 or email at tanya.flanagan@qhn.ca.

MEASUREMENT UPDATES

New Worksheets Now Available

The Safer Healthcare Now! Central Measurement Team has redesigned the intervention measurement worksheets to make data submission easier for teams.The new worksheets have been tested and are complete and posted on the campaign website at www.saferhealthcarenow.ca.

If you are about to embark on a new Intervention, or measure within an intervention, go to the SHN website and select, "measurement" form the menu bar on the left and then proceed to the appropriate intervention site (AMI, CLI, Med Rec, RRT, SSI or VAP) and select the worksheet you need.

If you have any questions about these new worksheets, please contact Virginia Flintoft at (416) 946-8350 or Stephanie Kam at (416) 946-3103.

New Classification of SHN Teams: Active or Inactive - A Message from the Ontario Node

This is an exciting time for the national Safer Healthcare Now! campaign. Over the last two years, we have had the opportunity to partner with you to improve safety in your health facilities using six targeted interventions and the progress you have made is something to celebrate!

As we enter into our second phase of the campaign, we want to highlight the work done in phase one with the senior leadership of your organizations. Before the New Year, your organization's CEO or designate will receive a progress report outlining your team's progress and how often you have submitted data and highlighting the latest results for your team.

Measurement is integral to improving systems and therefore fundamental to the expectations of a national campaign such as Safer Healthcare Now!. We have recognized that some teams are actively measuring and submitting data to the Central Measurement Team and others are not. In order to ensure that we have an accurate denominator of active teams, we have developed a process for designating teams as active or inactive in terms of data submission. The process is described below.

Safer Healthcare Now! Data Submission Policy

1. Baseline data for at least one measure of each intervention for which the organization is enrolled is to be submitted within the first 2 quarters following enrolment.
2. Early implementation data must be submitted within 2 quarters of baseline data submission or the team will be designated as "Inactive".
3. Early implementation data should be submitted at a minimum of once every 2 quarters or the team will be designated as "Inactive".
4. A team that has reached its measurement goal (Full Implementation) and held its gains for 6 months is encouraged to monitor its performance intermittently to avoid slippage. Voluntary quarterly data submission is recommended.
5. A team may re-activate at any time by submitting data.

As the Key Organizational Contact, we rely on you and your internal process to communicate the latest and greatest for the campaign, thus we wanted to ensure you had this message in good time to prepare those who will be receiving the update on your organizations Safer Healthcare Now! teams. Please call us if you need any more interpretation into this process and what it could mean for your organization.

Sincerely,

The Ontario Node, Safer Healthcare Now!

Cynthia Majewsk at cynthia.majewski@qhn.ca or (416) 351.3761
Clara Ballantine at clara.ballantine@qhn.ca or (613) 736.9142

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

QHN has designed a one day workshop to build capacity for quality improvement in member organizations. Each QHN member is entitled to 3 free seats as promised in their 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. Teams enrolled in the Safer Healthcare Now! campaign are welcome to purchase 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.

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, click here or visit http://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 http://www.ohqc.ca/

EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES

This week the Ontario Health Quality Council (OHQC) posted two new positions: Program Director, Quality Improvement Projects and Quality Improvement Consultant. For more information on these exciting opportunities click here.

RECOMMENDED READING

2007 Halifax 7 Symposium Proceedings, Speaker Presentations

Speaker presentations are now available to download from the speaker page of the Halifax 7 Symposium website. Click here for speaker presentations or go to http://www.buksa.com/halifax/.

The Halifax 7 Symposium continues the tradition as Canada's unique meeting of individuals and organizations with a desire to improve healthcare safety and enhance the overall quality of our healthcare system. The Symposium helps provide a better understanding of the phenomena of health system hazards, the behaviours of patients and healthcare providers, environmental and organizational factors, and the role of regulators.

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 http://www.qhn.ca.

Contact Information
Tanya Flanagan, Communications and Media Relations
Quality Healthcare Network/ Ontario 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