Good morning, TeamUHN!
It is a pleasure to connect with you across care, research, and education through this weekly CEO update – all in service of A Healthier World.
Key reminders and updates
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Welcome back to the "New Year," which begins in September for academic centres such as UHN, and a sincere thank you to all those who worked in service of patients and their communities over the Labour Day long weekend. We wish good luck to all of the students, faculty, and staff at The Michener Institute of Education who are beginning the 2023 Fall semester, as well as our friends at The University of Toronto.
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A
new website has been launched to provide details about UHN's potential merger with West Park Healthcare Centre to create the world's leading specialized rehabilitation centre. As I mentioned back in July, open and transparent communication is critical to this project and we are eager to hear feedback from TeamUHN and West Park staff. The website –
WestPark-UHN.ca – outlines why, after careful consideration, we are considering a merger of this scale. The ultimate goal is to create an integrated campus of care that will leverage the significant expertise and resources of both organizations to create a best-in-the-world tertiary and quaternary rehabilitation centre. As this process continues, please look out for
newsletters in your inbox.
UHN and West Park will hold a joint Open Forum on Sept. 28.Head over to the new website to
share your feedback, read
FAQs, and learn more about this exciting initiative.
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We are now just over 60 days until Project Agile goes live and we are in the final stages of testing our new system before training begins for all our impacted users. User Acceptance testing (UAT) will allow actual users to test system scenarios specific to how they will actually use the system when we go live, as well as ensure the system meets necessary business requirements across the network. More than 100 TeamUHN members have been carefully selected to participate based on their job position and department. UAT runs Sept. 18 - Oct. 17, and training for Project Agile will commence the week of Sept. 11. Please keep an eye out for more information in the coming weeks, and take advantage of the resources available to you in advance of going live on Nov. 6. Thank you to everyone on the project team, and all of TeamUHN who are supporting this important business transformation.
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Congratulations to the winners of the inaugural Clinical Research Partnership Competition from KITE Research and Toronto Rehab (TR). The competition saw teams comprised of at least one KITE scientist and a TR clinician submit proposals for clinical research projects to improve patient outcomes. Two teams were awarded up to $7,5000 in funding to complete their project within a year. The first team, led by KITE senior scientist Dr. Kathy McGilton and TR nurse practitioner Dr. Shirin Vellani, aims to provide speech translation apps to non-English speaking inpatients at TR to improve communications and potentially spur the recruitment of more non-English speaking participants in research studies. The second team, led by KITE scientist Dr. Andrea Iaboni and TR occupational therapist Emily MacPherson, will explore the effects of using soft lighting, soothing sounds, and familiar views in TR's Specialized Dementia Unit. This competition highlights how partnerships between front-line clinical teams can unlock new innovations in patient care.
Read more from KITE.
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A happy retirement to Rosemarie Clarke after 35 years of service to UHN as a nurse and manager. Rosie, as she is best known, spent a decade nursing in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Toronto General Hospital (TGH) before taking her talents to the Immunodeficiency Clinic at TGH, first as a research coordinator and, since 2009, the Clinical Research Manager. What she thought would be a three-month trial period turned into 24 years. “Research has a different language, a different way of doing things but I soon realized my critical care training helped me analyze and assess, meaning that I've always been stimulated and challenged by the work we do," she said. We wish her all the best in her new chapter, with more time to spend with family and pursue new goals.
Read more about her remarkable career with UHN.
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In another example of thinking “outside the box," UHN's Emergency Department (ED) has launched the “Fast-ED" initiative to increase efficiency and decrease wait times at Toronto General and Toronto Western Hospitals. The first phase of the Flow, Access, Safety Throughout in the ED (Fast-ED) initiative recently brought together 60 TeamUHN members from ED disciplines, including nurses, physicians, patient care coordinators, and personal support workers, to share ideas to improve flow and “time to triage" in these busy sites. One such idea saw a team at Toronto General quickly transform an old photocopy room into a space for blood and specimen collection. “Fast-ED is about looking at what's adding value versus what isn't," Dr. Sam Sabbah, Medical Director of Emergency Medicine at UHN, told UHN News. The second phase of the Fast-ED initiative begins this month, with goals to cut times to discharge and for diagnostic imaging of lower acuity patients.
Read more at UHN News.
Closing Notes
September is Arthritis Awareness Month. More than six million Canadians live with arthritis, a chronic disease that can cause deterioration, inflammation, or swelling of bones, joints, and other connective tissues. There are more than 100 different types of arthritis. According to a recent study in the
Lancet Rheumatology, cases of Osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis, could grow to one billion worldwide by 2050. The Schroeder Arthritis Institute (SAI) at University Health Network is the largest multidisciplinary arthritis hub in Canada. It integrates medical, surgical, and basic science aspects of Hand, Orthopedics, Osteoporosis, and Rheumatology, with a vision of making revolutionary impacts in discovery, education, and the diagnosis and treatment of patients with arthritis. To learn more about the SAI, visit:
www.uhn.ca/Arthritis.
As part of People & Culture's vision for UHN as a high-performing learning organization, we launched a pilot of
Percipio, a new learning tool with a rich library of multimedia content, which has been running from May 23 to Nov. 30.Since all TeamUHN members can access Percipio from the
MyLearning home page, we hope that you have accessed this tool and found it beneficial to your continued learning and development. In order to help our team better understand where impact is occurring and how we might improve our learning programs for even greater effect, we ask you to take 5 minutes to complete an anonymous Percipio Effectiveness Survey running until Sep. 13 by clicking
here. To learn more about this exciting tool, visit
the P&C Intranet site (Corporate Intranet > Departments > People & Culture) for more details. To request a training session on Percipio, please contact
elearning@uhn.ca.
Don't forget to
register for UHN Foundation's Rally for Rehab on Sunday, Sept. 10, in support of Toronto Rehab. As we know, Toronto Rehab helps patients reclaim their independence after life-altering health events. We help them regain their strength, relearn vital life skills, and discover new ways to approach daily tasks so they can return to their lives. Rally for Rehab, presented by BMO, is a day of family-friendly activities and an accessible walk. I encourage TeamUHN to participate in this event and rally for those who have benefited from rehabilitation at some point in their lives. Join as an individual or round up your co-workers, family, and friends and start a team to Rally for Rehab.
Register now!
On Friday, Sept. 15, The Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation will host TeamUHN members and their families for a preview of the Princess Margaret Home Lottery Grand Prize Showhome in Oakville. UHN employees are invited to be among the first to explore more than 7,000 square feet of luxury living space, designed by custom builder PCM and Brian Gluckstein, from noon to 5 p.m. at 190 Tilford Road in Oakville. There is limited accessibility parking only at the Showhome, with further parking at St. Paul's United Church (454 Rebecca St.) and a courtesy shuttle bus provided. This grand prize not only includes the stunning home, valued at more than $7.7 million, but a 2023 BMW i4 M50 xDrive and $500,000 cash. The Fall 2023 Princess Margaret Home Lottery features more than 20,000 prizes valued at more than $19 million. To learn more and to purchase tickets,
visit the Princess Margaret Home Lottery website.
And now.. our
video of the week. This clip takes us inside one of UHN's state-of-the-art Organ Repair Labs.
Feedback?
Your feedback is welcome and valued. Please reply directly to me or
leave anonymous feedback here.
Have a good week,
Kevin
