Over the last year, Halton Healthcare has continued to provide compassionate, high-quality care to the community we so proudly serve, while also undergoing some exciting changes.
Last June, we welcomed Melissa Farrell as our new President and CEO. Melissa spent her first year getting to know the staff, culture and operations at Halton Healthcare by visiting individual units and departments throughout the organization.
From a clinical perspective, we continue to see double digit growth in a number of clinical areas. MRI volumes increased by 10% over the past year while CT volumes grew by 13%. We experienced growth in inpatient days for Paediatric Acute, Paediatric Acute Mental Health and Adult Mental Health of 21%, 10% and 18% respectively. We performed almost 53,000 surgeries, conducted over 343,500 diagnostic exams and delivered over 4,760 babies. We also had 367,450 Ambulatory Care visits, which included a 16% growth in Mental Health & Addictions visits and an 11% growth in Oncology visits. Patients were provided more than 830,200 meals. While our pandemic numbers have decreased, we still cared for 3,455 COVID patients during this time period.
In the communities we serve, we have seen growth in both our paediatric and senior populations and in their healthcare needs. In response, we opened our first paediatric beds at Milton District Hospital in February of 2024, are exploring paediatric services at Georgetown Hospital and are consistently working to optimize our geriatric services.
Since we expect these patient volumes to grow even further over the next decade our focus entails evaluating our clinical services today to plan for tomorrow. Guided by our strategic priorities of Connect, Advance, Respond, Engage (CARE), we continue to work to develop and strengthen our partnerships and implement meaningful strategies to improve care, as we poise our organization for the future.
We continue to enable an innovative culture so we can achieve the next digital horizon in care delivery. We are optimizing our electronic health record system, Meditech Expanse, to make it more user friendly and efficient with the end goal of improving patient safety and care. Also, most recently, we launched a secure patient data sharing program called AMPLIFI, which connects Halton Healthcare to other hospitals and Long-term Care facilities to ensure safer and seamless transitions for patients during transfers between these healthcare facilities.
We continue to actively collaborate with our community partners and other health providers to help improve the patient experience and create an integrated and seamless continuum of services. For example, in 2023, Halton Healthcare was designated as the Regional Coordinated Access Hub to manage musculoskeletal Rapid Access Clinic referrals for the entire Central Region and we are consequently realigning our programs to better meet the evolving needs of our community. We also became the first to provide Seamless Care Optimizing the Patient Experience (SCOPE) for paediatrics – which you can read more about in this report.
Last fall we received amazing news of an unprecedented gift to our organization. The Walker Wood family generously donated 105 acres of farmland in southwest Halton Hills to help us meet the future healthcare needs of the region. With this gift, we have a unique opportunity to create a state-of-the art healthcare complex for the communities we serve which will provide care for generations to come.
We ended 2023 on a high note having just received the results of our Accreditation Canada 2023 survey, where, once again, Halton Healthcare achieved the highest possible ranking of “Exemplary Standing” for the second consecutive time. This achievement speaks volumes about the quality of care that we provide within our communities, thanks to the dedication of our people to our patients and their families.
As mentioned above, Halton Region is projected to surge in population by 60 percent or more over the next 25 years and the demand for hospital services in Ontario is poised to escalate significantly over the next 15 years. In addition to this population growth, our community is also becoming more culturally diverse, underscoring the need for innovative approaches to ensure equitable access to care for all.
This presents an opportunity for us to really examine where and how we provide health services which is why we created One Halton Healthcare, a comprehensive unified strategy designed to ensure we can continue to care for our growing and diverse population. We are planning for the care, the people and the spaces we need in order to continue to provide high quality care for a growing number of patients and families. We are building for the future, as One Halton Healthcare: one team, one organization, united by one common vision to provide exemplary patient experiences, always.
Halton Healthcare is an exemplary organization with an incredible culture of care. With our vibrant and dedicated teams, we are well-positioned to take on any challenges and projects that may come our way while we work proactively to evolve our organization to meet the needs of the future. Our commitment to excellence, and our purpose ‘To Care’, always shines through, thanks to the unwavering efforts of our staff, physicians, learners, volunteers and Board members. We also want to thank our foundations, donors and the overall community for their incredible support. We couldn’t do what we do without you.