update - Hotel Dieu Hospital

Celebrating 165 years of caring
A pioneering spirit in the pursuit of health care excellence
by Sister Joan Kalchbrenner
In 1920, achieving standards set for
excellence in health care—a process
we now call accreditation—became
a reality in North American hospitals.
They were reviewed annually
and accreditation granted to those
with acceptable standards.
Hotel Dieu Hospital was among
the first to achieve accreditation. In
1921 the hospital was reviewed and
Thurs. March 3
Fri. March 4
10 am to 6 pm
HDH main lobby
evaluated for its surgical program,
receiving top ranking among
American hospitals, and in 1924 the
Ontario Hospital Association was
formed with Hotel Dieu physician
Edward Ryan as an inaugural member
of the executive.
And as far back as 1902, an agreement
with Queen’s University
allowed clinical space and time at
Hotel Dieu for medical school professors
to teach the next generation
of physicians across a variety of disciplines
such as surgery, medicine,
ophthalmology, otolaryngology
and gynecology.
From early days, then, the pursuit of
excellence and quality in health care
was paramount at Hotel Dieu.
In this year of celebrating 165
years of caring at Hotel Dieu, we
recently marked our commitment
to excellence in a special way when
we launched the 3rd edition of the
HDH Values booklet recently to help
mark our annual Mission Week in
early February.
In 2011, “excellence” has been
added to the list of values that guide
our hospital—a long-held value will
be formally articulated as we continue
to pursue it in health service,
education and research.