This has been a year of rejuvenation. While the veil of the pandemic challenges slowly lifts, our teams have heartily taken on the many other obstacles that arose this past year. Always innovative, there has been no stopping the collaborative efforts of everyone on our team to ensure that we provide safe, quality care to our patients, families and communities.
Last fall, an increase in both patient volumes and acuity in our Emergency Departments, quickly translated into increased volumes in all of our services. An organization-wide campaign engaged staff, physicians and volunteers to offer creative solutions that has led to several changes to improve patient flow and preserve hospital capacity.
To support our people, a renewed focus has been placed on action plans for retention, recruitment, professional development, team well-being and engagement, student placement and academic partnerships. This work is being led by a dedicated, multi-disciplinary team of staff and physicians from across the organization who make up a Health Human Resources Steering Committee. We are seeing some early success, which is largely credited to active engagement of a cross-section of staff and physicians along with patients and families.
From a clinical perspective we had a very busy year, having performed more than 50,780 surgeries, conducting almost 322,000 diagnostic exams and delivering 4,565 babies. Our teams have worked to restore service to pre-pandemic levels in all areas, including diagnostic imaging. MRI wait times, for instance, at both Milton District and Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospitals are exceeding provincial benchmarks thanks to creative solutions to increase capacity.
Late in the year we welcomed five Accreditation Canada surveyors for an on-site survey assessing leadership, governance, clinical programs and services against rigorous quality and safety requirements. The organization performed outstandingly well and we proudly achieved the highest possible ranking of “Exemplary Standing”. This effort speaks volumes about the quality of care that we provide within our communities and our commitment to our purpose ‘To Care’ shines through, thanks to the efforts of our staff, physicians, volunteers and Board members.
As many of the conditions once in place from the pandemic have been relaxed, we have a much clearer picture of the way forward and we’re working to respond in those areas where our communities need us most. We’re poised to once again exchange smiles between colleagues, patients and families as we react to evolving public health guidelines allowing for more choices based on personal health and comfort levels. Our leaders are diving into a clinical service planning process that will determine a roadmap for high quality service evolution and we will welcome a new President and CEO, Melissa Farrell, early in the fiscal year.
Our teams are strong and vibrant and are reinforced by solid connections to each other and our communities. Together we are well-positioned to take on any challenges - we are well equipped for carefully planned advancements and for those that require quick, yet considerate reaction. We are grateful that we have the strength of our team members behind us and we know that in spite of anything that may come our way we can continue to deliver on our purpose ‘To Care’ and our vision of providing exemplary patient experiences, always.