MUHC to celebrate excellence in patient care at AGM
MONTREAL Dec 3, 2013 — One of Canada’s largest teaching and research health institutions received an early holiday gift. The McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) recently concluded its Accreditation Canada 2013 assessment and was awarded high scores across the board, with an overall evaluation of 92.9%. In addition, four initiatives were recognized as Leading Practices by Accreditation Canada. The details will be announced at today’s Annual General Meeting from 4 to 5:30 pm at 5100 de Maisonneuve Boulevard West (Salon Glen), Montreal.
“While being in the midst of the most significant transformation in our history, our focus is on fulfilling our mandate as a leading academic health centre and the provision of complex and specialized care,” explained Claudio F. Bussandri, Chairman of the MUHC Board of Directors. “We take great satisfaction in the results of Accreditation Canada’s evaluation, and we are particularly proud of the teams whose work was recognized as the country’s Leading Practices in healthcare.”
The four MUHC Leading Practices recognized by Accreditation Canada are:
• Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) – This program integrates multiple elements of perioperative care into a single, multidisciplinary care plan, in order to provide evidence-based, consistent patient care. So far, the implementation of the ERAS program has resulted in better patient recovery and overall improved efficiency for several surgical procedures. The MUHC intends to make ERAS the standard of care for our common surgeries across the health centre.
• Ethics and Advanced Communication Simulation Workshop – This educational workshop was designed and implemented to provide ethics training to pediatric residents through simulation. Residents’ exposures to difficult conversations and addressing ethical issues can be quite variable, and experiential simulation-based education offers an opportunity to address training needs and better prepare future physicians with the knowledge, skills and ability to recognize and respond to ethical dimensions of patient care that arise in their training and future practice.
• Low Cost Rapid Response Team – Rapid response teams, which are a group of health care professionals trained to respond to severely ill patients, have been recommended as a method to decrease cardiac arrests in hospitals. However, the implementation of such teams requires significant human and financial resources. The MUHC model piloted on one of our medical floors involved training the ward nurses to recognize at risk patients and call the senior ward resident directly – rather than go through the usual process of calling medical students and junior residents first. By using expertise already available locally on the medical ward, the team was able to decrease cardiac arrest rates without increasing resources.
• Mass Casualty Simulation – In the fall of 2012, the MUHC prepared and tested a mass casualty simulation (Code Orange) in collaboration with the Agence de santé et des services sociaux de Montreal and other external partners. The simulation involved the Montreal General Hospital and the Montreal Children’s Hospital. In addition to treating 79 ‘false victims’ during the exercise, both emergency departments continued to treat incoming patients. A DVD was developed, which provides important information to help hospital across the country development their own Code Orange protocols.
Along with this good news, the MUHC received another positive indication from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), which published their updated hospital standardized mortality ratios. Again this year, the MUHC shows excellent results, placing the institution amongst the top Canadian hospitals.
“In the past year we have made enormous progress,” says Normand Rinfret, Director General and CEO of the MUHC “Our deficit was estimated to be around $115 million according to the Baron Report, and we concluded the 2012-13 fiscal year at a $72.5 million deficit - 37 per cent lower than expected. This year we are anticipating a $20 million deficit, and we expect to reach budget equilibrium the following year.”
“I wish to be clear,” notes Mr. Rinfret, “that our commitment is to meet our financial targets while maintaining and enhancing quality patient care. The Accreditation Canada and CIHI reports underscore that thanks to the dedication and talent of the staff who work at the MUHC we are succeeding.”
About Accreditation Canada and Leading Practices
Accreditation Canada provides national and international health care organizations with an external peer review process to assess and improve the services they provide to their patients based on standards of excellence. In addition to the on-site evaluation process, Accreditation Canada has established a process to recognize innovative solutions to improve quality, termed Leading Practices. These practices are published by Accreditation Canada as models for other health care organizations to follow as they strive to improve their own services.
About the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC)
One of the world’s foremost academic health centres, the MUHC offers exceptional and integrated patient-centric care, research, teaching and technology assessment. Affiliated with the Faculty of Medicine of McGill University, it is highly committed to the continuum of care in its community. The partner hospitals of the MUHC—the Lachine Hospital, the Montreal Chest Institute, the Montreal General Hospital, the Montreal Neurological Hospital, the Royal Victoria Hospital and the Montreal Children's Hospital—value multidisciplinary service throughout the lifespan, innovative technologies and practices, strategic partnerships and leadership in knowledge transfer. The MUHC is currently carrying out a $2.355-billion Redevelopment Project on three sites—the Glen, and the Montreal General and Lachine hospitals—designed to provide healthcare professionals with an effective environment in which to ensure patients and their families benefit from The Best Care for Life. The sites are also anchored in best sustainable-development practices, including LEED® and BOMA BESt guidelines
www.muhc.ca muhc.ca/construction
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For more information please contact:
Rebecca Burns
MUHC Public Affairs & Strategic Planning
Rebecca [dot] Burns [at] muhc [dot] mcgill [dot] ca
T: 514-843-1560
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