Royal Review January 16, 2017

Wearing you spirit on your sleeve

Do you know a colleague who lives the RVH values of Work Together, Respect All, Think Big, Own It and Care, every day – always – without exception? If you answered ‘Yes’ to that question, don’t let their efforts go unnoticed. You can recog-nize them by nominating them for an RVH Board of Directors’ Award of Excellence. This is an important opportunity for you to honour your skilled and dedi-cated peers who make up TEAM RVH. In fact, you can even nominate an entire team for this award. The nomination package (found via the intranet home page) has been simplified and the submissions will be scored on the quality of the examples which illustrate how the nomi-nee lives our values. Your sub-mission can even be point form – just remember to provide clear and concrete examples. The nomination categories include:

Staff (including Coordinators and Supervisors)

Physician

Manager/director

Volunteer

Team. Nominations are due Friday, February 17. If you have any questions regarding the nomi-nation process, please contact Wendy Sallows at ext. 41200 or sallowsw@rvh.on.ca or Ni-cola Charity at ext. 41029 or charityn@rvh.on.ca.

Board of Directors’ Awards of Excellence

Woes of winter: RVH enacts surge plan Since the recent holidays, RVH has experi-enced overcapacity throughout the building, with both high volumes and acuity of admitted patients. This reality caused RVH to enact its surge plan to ensure our Emergency depart-ment (ED) continues to function. Additional unfunded overcapacity beds were opened as needed, including in corri-dors on all medical units, in a “Surge Unit” adjacent to the ED accommodating 20 pa-tients and on the Integrated Stroke & Rehabil-itation Inpatient unit. Staffing has also been increased through-out the health centre to ensure patients re-ceive safe, high-quality care no matter where they are located in the facility. Hospitals across Simcoe Muskoka are ex-periencing a similar spike in volumes and we are working closely with our partners on a regional surge plan to ensure patients are being repatriated to their home hospitals. Adding to the challenges RVH faces, the incidence of influenza is growing quickly. Since January 1, the number of confirmed cases in the region has quadrupled to 158 (as of January 16) and the Simcoe Muskoka Dis-trict Health Unit has declared widespread community activity throughout the region. The flu season is not expected to peak for another

one to four weeks. Mean-while, influenza and other respiratory/gastrointestinal outbreaks have closed 20 area institutions (as of January 16). As TEAM RVH we must continue doing all we can to avoid an outbreak here, including:

Frequent and thorough handwashing

Increased infection prevention and control monitoring

Huddles and rounding with staff on units

Adhering to personal protective equipment (PPE) protocols

Enhanced cleaning/disinfecting If you have not received your flu shot, it is still recommended. The vaccine is a good match for this year’s predominant flu strain and it will also help protect against a potential second wave of flu that could arrive between February and April. You can still be vaccinat-ed at many local pharmacies, including Pure Health at RVH, or through healthcare provid-ers (family physicians, walk-in clinics). RVH will continue working with media to communicate the appropriate use of the ED and encourage people to visit their primary care physician or walk-in clinic for health con-ditions that are not urgent.

Starting Friday, January 20, Victoria’s Gift Shop will be selling RVH Spirit Wear with proceeds benefit-ting the RVH Auxiliary. Victoria’s Gift Shop staff and volunteers modelled some of the latest in RVH fashion (from left) - Cathy Keys, Manager, Victoria’s Gift Shop; Dave Capel, volunteer; Nancy Lapen-see, Assistant Manager, Victoria’s Gift Shop; and Susan Turner, volunteer.

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RVH Royal Review January 16, 2017

RVH’s Building & Facilities Operations team recently celebrated a big win for its bot-tom line and for the environment. GE Power & Water awarded RVH with the Proof Not Promises/Return on Environment Award. This honour is presented to organiza-tions that undertake and successfully implement projects to realize savings and re-duce their environmental impact. “GE believes that being good environmental stewards and operating profitable business are not mutually exclusive,” says Kevin Thompson, Account Manager with GE Power & Water. In RVH’s case, we were blending raw water, which is very hard, with soft water for the cooling tower. It was difficult to control levels and the cooling tower was over-flowing most of the 2015 cooling season. With the help of GE, we switched from blended makeup to all soft water, changed the treatment chemistry and repro-grammed the level controller from three cycles to seven cycles, stopping the tower from overflowing. We reduced our chemical use, softener salt comsumption and the amount of water being discharged by sewer. The total cost savings from making these changes was $107,200.

RVH and environment win big with water

Quarterly hand hygiene results: October - December 2016

In Q3, RVH saw some of its highest hand hy-giene compliance rates we’ve ever had. Three inpatient units and three outpatient areas reached 100% while all others were above 96%. Congratulations to all! Inpatient units:

Integrated Stroke & Rehabilitation - 100%

Obstetrics and Child and Youth - 100%

Surgery 3 - 100%

Intensive Care Unit (ICU) - 99.1%

Cancer & Palliative - 99%

Cardiac & Renal - 99%

Respiratory - 99%

Surgery 2 - 99%

Specialized Seniors Care - 98%

Outpatient areas:

Chemotherapy Treatment Clinic - 100%

Imaging - 100%

PACU - 100%

Surgery Recovery - 98.9%

Dialysis - 98%

Emergency - 96%

Hand hygiene champions

Integrated Stroke & Rehabilitation

Giuliana Jenkins - RPN Specialized Seniors Care

Karen Goutouski - RPN Emergency department

Dr. Craig Simpson

Jay Meredith - Physiotherapist

Katrina Rowe - Occupational Therapist

Dana - Occupational Therapy student Surgery 2

Brittany Bimm - RPN PACU

Lisa Montgomery - RN Cardiac Care Unit

Dr. Lauren Manalokas

Soon the films will be in and the ballots will be cast for the 2017 RVH Film Festival. It’s not too late to begin working on your cinematic masterpiece! Submissions are due Monday, January 30 and voting for the People’s Choice category will run February 10 to 21. RVH winners will be an-nounced in the following three categories at The Vickies on Thursday, March 2, 2017 (noon, Auditorium):

People’s Choice

Most Creative—voted on by a panel of celebrity judges

MY CARE– voted on by a panel of RVH judges This year we will also receive submissions from area schools showcas-ing their take on what RVH means to them. Good luck everyone!

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RVH Royal Review January 16, 2017

Dear RVH,

The nurse on duty deserves recognition. My mom was sent by ambulance to RVH in November and was there between 2:30 pm. and 2:30 am. She has been in and out of the hospi-tal for numerous surgeries and visits this past year and this time one nurse in particular stood out more than anyone. A nurse named Charlotte was working on the 4th floor (Surgery 2 Inpatient unit) that night while my mom was wait-ing for the operating room to accept her. Charlotte made my mom’s stay a very pleasant one. Talking with her we discov-ered that it was her first shift which we were surprised to hear considering how professional and efficient she dealt with my mom’s situation. Charlotte shows great care and pride in what she does and all my mom has been talking about was how great her stay was at the hospital. I just wanted to thank her again for put-ting a smile on my moms face and making her feel welcome. I wish Charlotte a wonderful career and appreciate the indi-vidual effort that she made to put a smile, on mine, and my mom’s face. Naturally good-hearted people deserve recognition and her kind efforts did not go unnoticed.

Thanks again, Jeff S.

A word from our patients...

CIA performs random acts of kindness Meet your RVH Spiritual Care team

Angela Schmidt (far left), RVH’s Spiritual Care Lead-er, poses with the new Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) students (from left) Donna Chantler, Greg Armstrong, Lisa Naumann, and Phyllis Alberts. CPE is an experience-based approach to learning, combining the practice of spiritual care giving with qualified supervision and group reflec-tion. This dynamic and integrative education model assists persons in developing spiritual care and counselling competencies as defined by the Canadian Association for Spiritual Care and the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario. CPE training is a new pro-gram at RVH and it is one of 34 centres across Canada. The pro-gram is of interest to students studying theology or psychotherapy, to healthcare professionals wanting to integrate spiritual care skills, and to community faith leaders seeking knowledge and skills.

Late last year we launched the ‘I Have an Idea’ pro-gram to help RVH achieve another balanced budget. And you came through for us. We received 171 ideas. Everyone who submitted an idea had their name placed in a random, electronic draw for one of three $50 gift certificates from Café Royale or Victoria’s Gift Shop. The winners were Carole Dale (RN, Urgent Consult Clinic), Jennifer Moore (Communications) and the Clinical Informatics (CIA) Team. In fact, the CIA team are so full of great ideas they took their gift card and used it to improve the patient experience. The team threw in $200 of their own funds and purchased 25, ten dol-lar coffee cards from Café Royale, handing them out to patients enter-ing the cancer centre just before the holidays. Way to pay if forward and another great idea from the CIA team!

RVH Health Bytes is a new partnership between RVH and BIG 101.1, Fresh Radio 93.1 and The Peak 95.1 FM. Twice a month the radio stations will run a video pod-cast on their website featuring an RVH expert speaking about a particular health topic. We were very pleased to have Respiratory Therapist, Ginny Myles, kick off this new web-based show with a seg-ment on why people should quit smoking and then her followup podcast will be how to quit smoking. If you listen to these sta-tions, you will hear the on-air personalities pro-moting this new partner-ship. The shows are also housed on our own RVH YouTube channel

– so check them out. Stay tuned for segments featuring Emergency physi-cian, Dr. George Karasmanis. RVH dietitian, Tara Thomas Tarcza will provide the low-down on carbs, how to feed your picky eater and shedding those unwanted holiday pounds safely. If you have ideas for topics you would like to hear about, just email Donna Danyluk at danylukd@rvh.on.ca.

RVH creates new video podcast

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RVH Royal Review January 16, 2017

Foundation News

Christine Pearce, an RN from the Surgery 2 Inpatient unit, has ac-cepted the temporary part-time HSL position until fall of 2017. Chris-tine started at RVH in 2009 as an RPN in the

Emergency department. While Christine worked in Emergency, she went back to school and ob-tained her Bache-lor of Science in Nursing degree. Since then, she has worked as an RN on Surgery 2. Christine also completed her Bachelor of Edu-cation this past fall.

New VP & CHRO Darrell Sewell is RVH’s new Vice Presi-dent and Chief Human Resources Officer, effective January 16, 2017. Darrell comes to RVH with an impressive resume as a senior human resources (HR) executive with extensive healthcare experience. He is a strategic, solutions-focused leader with a broad knowledge of all elements of HR - including talent management, occu-pational health, em-ployee and labour re-lations - acquired dur-ing nearly 30 years in healthcare. Most re-cently, he held the po-sition of VP of Human Resources and Sup-port Services at Toron-to’s Sinai Health Sys-tem.

CCO Human Touch Award

Vicci Stevenson has accepted the part- time Accreditation Coordinator role. Vic-ci has been working on the Security team and was also the Accreditation Specialist in 2015, where she was part of the ac-creditation team that led us to an exem-plary standing. Vicci holds a BA degree from University of Guelph and demon-strates a commitment to ongoing learning as evidenced by the many certifications she has received. Vicci joined the Quality team on January 9. Vicci will soon begin working with programs to en-sure we deliver on our commitment that Safety is Our Promise and that accreditation readi-ness is embedded into our culture.

Call for Nominations! Do you know or work with someone who exhibits exem-plary and compassionate patient care? Nominate them for a Human Touch Award and celebrate the unsung heroes on the front lines of the healthcare system who provide the true ‘human touch’ to patients across Ontario every day. All part-time and full-time healthcare professionals, pro-viders and volunteers at either a regional cancer centre or a kidney care centre are eligible to be nominated. For more information about the awards and nomination process, please visit cancercare.on.ca/humantouch or renalnetwork.on.ca/humantouch. Nominations close on Friday, February 10, 2017. Pictured above: Former recipient of a Hu-man Touch Award, Dr. Bryn Pressnail, Med-ical Oncologist with the Simcoe Muskoka Regional Cancer Program.