August 20, 2012 - St. Joseph's Health Centre Toronto

onnections
A newsletter for the staff, physicians, volunteers, residents and students of St. Joseph’s Health Centre
AUGUST 20, 2012
Inspire Our People
Meet Elizabeth Buller, St. Joseph’s Health Centre’s new President
and CEO
St. Joseph’s Health Centre is
pleased to announce the
appointment of Elizabeth (Liz)
Buller as the Health Centre’s new
President and Chief Executive
Officer (CEO). Liz will officially
join the organization on
September 17, 2012.
As President and CEO, Liz will
work in partnership with the
Board, Senior Leadership Team,
Chief of Staff and physician
leaders, Foundation and the
entire interprofessional team to
build on St. Joe’s tradition of
delivering outstanding, safe, high
quality, patient-centred care to
the communities in Toronto’s west
end. With Liz’s leadership and
direction, St. Joe’s will
continue to move forward with
our strategic priorities, bringing us
closer to our Vision of becoming
Canada’s Best Community
Teaching Hospital.
“We are thrilled to have Liz join
us,” said Ellen Malcolmson,
Interim President at St. Joe’s.
“Liz’s values-based leadership
style, strategic focus on health
care excellence and proven
ability to lead high performance
teams make her a great fit for the
organization.”
Liz is a senior leader with
extensive health care
administration experience in
various academic, community
and faith-based hospital settings.
She has more than 25 years of
health care experience, including
a background in emergency and
critical care nursing and almost
20 years in senior leadership
roles in health care.
Currently, Liz is the Executive
Vice President of Clinical
Operations and the Chief of
Nursing & Professional Practice
for the William Osler Health
System (WOHS).
Story continued on Page 3.
I N S I D E
St. Joe’s keeps patients safe by reducing
falls with harm in first quarter of the
2012-13 fiscal year 2
Meet Elizabeth Buller, St. Joseph’s Health
Centre’s new President and CEO cont. 3
Centre for Clinical Ethics 2012 Fall
Conference 3
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Unit
moves to the Our Lady of Mercy Wing 4
1 St. Joseph’s Health Centre – Toronto

connections
A
newsletter for the staff, physicians, volunteers, residents and students of St. Joseph's Health Centre
Put Patients First
St. Joe’s keep patients safe by
reducing falls with harm in first
quarter of the 2012-13 fiscal year
By Tanya Kavcic, Jr. Communications Associate
In fiscal year 2012-13, Quality Improvement continues
to be an ongoing priority that helps us continually find
new and better ways of providing quality and safe care
to our patients. It gives St. Joseph’s Health Centre the
ability to see our targeted areas for improvement and
chart our progress while clearly articulating our
accountability to our patients, staff and community. One
of the key Big Aim initiatives is to reduce the number of
patient falls with harm by 30 per cent from the
2011-2012 fiscal year. This has proven to be an early
success story for quarter one (the months of April, May
and June) as we have reduced our number of patient
falls with harm to 19 instances for the first quarter. This
represents a 24 per cent improvement!
“The Senior Leadership attributes this quarter’s
success to the diligent focus and attention to the
reduction of patient falls with harm of our employees,
physicians, students, and volunteers along with the
great support and guidance of the Falls Prevention
Committee,” said Wendy Steele, Chief of People,
Learning and Leadership and executive sponsor of the
patient falls with harm corporate initiative. “We thank
you and our patients thank you!”
“Last fiscal year we had 142 falls with harm. Our aim
this year is 99 falls with harm or fewer which translates
into just under 25 falls with harm per quarter so we
were well under our target for the first quarter,” said
Chris Ashdown, Physiotherapy Professional Practice
Leader and co-lead of our falls with harm initiative. “We
celebrated with a pizza lunch for the staff on 6M
because their unit had the greatest success in lowering
their falls with harm in the first quarter of this year
relative to the first quarter of last year.”
Falls are rated on a scale from one through four, from
least severe with no injury to most severe resulting in
death. In addition to team huddles following any fall,
The staff on 6M, the unit to have the greatest success in lowering
their number of falls with harm for the first quarter of the 2012-13
fiscal year, celebrate their accomplishment with a pizza lunch.
the two co-leads, Chris Ashdown and Joe Brubaker,
are meeting with patients and their families of anyone
who has experienced a falls injury to determine what
happened and why. “It’s a good opportunity for us to
interact with patients and their families to get their input
on how we can improve our efforts,” said Ashdown.
Additionally, the committee leads are conducting
weekly audits of our falls risk assessment tools to
determine if patients are at risk of a falls injury. The
current focus is on our inpatient Medicine program
areas as we know these units account for at least two
thirds of all our falls with injury.
In order to reduce falls with harm further, the Falls
Committee will be piloting a structured rounding
process – scheduled and frequent visits with patients –
to proactively meet patients’ needs to prevent them
from injuring themselves by independently doing things
they need assistance with. By regulating the time and
frequency of rounding, patients will know when they
can expect staff to help them to reduce the risk of falls.
Together with the ongoing commitment and focus by
staff, physicians, students and volunteers, we continue
to strive to reduce patient falls with harm.
St. Joe’s continues to Put Patients First by making the
reduction of patient falls with harm one of our few Big
Aim priorities for 2012/13. “Reducing the number of
falls injuries prevents pain and suffering for our patients
and minimizes their length of stay,” said Ashdown.
“Changes we made last year – using exit alarms, falls
mats and conducting team huddles after each fall – are
gaining traction which is a reflection on our improved
numbers.”
2 St. Joseph’s Health Centre – Toronto

connections
A
newsletter for the staff, physicians, volunteers, residents and students of St. Joseph's Health Centre
Story continued from Page 1.
WOHS is one of Canada’s largest multi-site community hospital
corporations serving the growing and diverse communities of
Brampton, Etobicoke and surrounding areas in the Greater Toronto
Area. As the Executive Vice President since 2008, Liz provides
strategic and operational leadership for all clinical program and
support services including laboratory, diagnostic imaging and
pharmacy services in addition to the strategic oversight of nursing and
professional practice.
Prior to joining WOHS, Liz served as Senior Operating Officer for
Vancouver Acute, a multi-site tertiary/quaternary academic health
sciences centre serving the province of British Columbia within the
Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, Canada’s largest integrated
health region. Working in a regional health authority, Liz worked to
build formal relationships with community partners and local and rural
health facilities to ensure equal, seamless access to care for all
patients. Additionally, Liz has held positions of Executive Director,
Program Planning & Services and Director, Cardiac Sciences for
Providence Health Care also in Vancouver.
“It is an honour and privilege to be chosen as the President and CEO
of St. Joseph’s Health Centre,” said Liz Buller. “I am excited to build
on the great achievements and work underway to move the
organization forward in achieving our Vision of being Canada’s Best
Community Teaching Hospital.”
As St. Joseph’s welcomes our new President and CEO, several other
leadership transitions will take place. Richard Ross, current Board
Chair will step down from the Board of Directors and Ellen
Malcolmson will return to the Board of Directors as the new Chair,
also effective September 17.
“This time of change and transition is an exciting one for
St. Joseph’s,” said Richard Ross. “The entire Board of Directors team
is thrilled to be welcoming both Liz to the organization as our new
President and CEO and Ellen back to the Board as our new Chair. As
my time with the Board of Directors comes to an end, I leave knowing
that the new leadership at St. Joseph’s will continue to guide the
organization on the successful path we have worked hard to establish
to support the delivery of quality, patient care to the communities we
serve. It has been an honour being a part of this great organization for
the last nine years.”
Centre for Clinical
Ethics 2012 Fall
Conference
Affirming an Ethic of Care:
Meeting the Needs of
Vulnerable Persons
Friday, October 12, 2012
Registration Fees:
(includes lunch and
refreshment breaks)
Regular rate:
$150.00
Reduced rate:
$75.00
(seniors, full-time students, CHAO
Conference registrants and
CCE affiliates)
In 1982, the Sisters of St. Joseph
established a Clinical Ethics
Service jointly sponsored by
Providence Healthcare,
St. Joseph’s Health Centre and
St. Michael’s Hospital. The first
ethics service of its kind in
Canada has grown over the years
and today is known as the Centre
for Clinical Ethics.
The mission of the Centre for
Clinical Ethics is to enable
members of the health care
community to identify and resolve
ethical issues which arise in the
clinical setting. This is done
through education, case
consultations, policy development
and research.
For a full brochure and registration
form click here or contact Lynda
Sullivan at 416-530-6750 or by
email at sullil@stjoe.on.ca.
3 St. Joseph’s Health Centre – Toronto

connections
A
newsletter for the staff, physicians, volunteers, residents and students of St. Joseph's Health Centre
Use Our Resources Wisely
Child and Adolescent Mental
Health Unit moves to the Our
Lady of Mercy Wing
On Wednesday, August 29 Health Care Relocations
will be joining us again to move the Child and
Adolescent Mental Health (CAMH) Unit into their
new space on the third floor of the Our Lady of
Mercy (OLM) Wing. This move completes the
complement of services and departments operating
out of the new patient care wing.
The new space is double the size of the previous
unit and serves both outpatients and inpatients in
one location. Features of the inpatient space include
a terrace, exercise room and additional interview
rooms.
St. Joe’s will help to Enhance the Health of the
Communities we Serve in a bright, patient friendly
atmosphere by continuing our inpatient classroom,
lead by a teacher from the Toronto Catholic District
School Board, where patients can continue their
school studies.
All contact information for the Child and Adolescent
Mental Health unit will remain the same in OLM. A
big thank you is extended to the staff in the CAMH
Unit for their hard work and patience as the space
was prepared for their occupancy.
Connections is the official newsletter for the staff, physicians, volunteers, students and
residents of St. Joseph’s Health Centre. This is your newsletter and we’d like your feedback.
For comments or questions about this issue, or if you would like to contribute
to a future issue, please contact the editor, Tanya Kavcic, Junior Associate, Corporate
Communication & Public Affairs, via e-mail at kavcit@stjoe.on.ca.
Connections is published on a monthly basis by the Corporate Communications &
Public Affairs department.
St. Joseph’s Health Centre
30 The Queensway, Toronto, Ontario M6R 1B5
T: 416-530-6000 W: www.stjoe.on.ca
4 St. Joseph’s Health Centre – Toronto