When the campaign was complete, results showed that the Influenza Committee had achieved the desired targets and surpassed last year’s influenza immunization rate with their program. In addition, the campaign placed third in the Champlain Regional Infection Control Week contest.

Effect of Sandoz Drug Shortage

In February, Sandoz Canada - one of the country's leading suppliers of generic cancer and heart medications - announced that the production of injectable drugs at their Quebec facility will be significantly reduced as a result of quality control concerns raised by the Canadian and United States Governments. This announcement caused some concern at CPDMH and many hospitals across Canada and the U.S. However, by working with the LHIN and other hospitals in the area, particularly the Almonte General Hospital, CPDMH was able to avoid any disruption to patient care.

Hand Hygiene

Hand Hygiene is an important practice for health care providers and has a significant impact in reducing the spread of infections in hospitals. CPDMH has continued to monitor the compliance of its staff and physicians and was disappointed to see that its rates before and after patient contact had declined from 2010- 2011.

Table 3: Comparison of Hand Hygiene Compliance Before & After Initial Patient Contact

	2011-12	2010-11	% Change
% Compliance BEFORE Initial Patient/Patient Environment	83%	92%	-9.78%
% ComplianceAFTER Initial Patient/Patient Environment	82%	90%	-8.89%

To be clear, health care providers are washing their hands, however CPDMH believes that continued education on proper hand hygiene can only improve the health and safety of our patients and of course, our health care team. In the coming year, the Hospital’s management team and infection control professionals will refocus its efforts on hand hygiene. The first step in this process occurred in May, with participation in Stop! Clean Your Hands Day, a global initiative of the World Health Organization.

STRAGETIC PLANNING

In March, the members of CPDMH’s Board of Trustees participated in a Board Retreat and the main theme of the session was Innovation, Integration and Engagement.

The information gathered from the retreat will be used to begin the strategic planning for the next 5 years of the Hospital’s future. The resulting plan will be a road map that should properly position CPDMH for what lies ahead, determine strategic priorities as well as the goals and objectives to meet those priorities. The plan will also provide a means for the Hospital to carefully measure and track success.

REDEVELOPMENT

The building of a new hospital continues to be a priority for CPDMH and its Board of Trustees, and the community as a whole. This became especially apparent during the Provincial Election in the fall of 2011. An advocacy campaign was jointly launched by the Town of Carleton Place and Township of Beckwith urging local candidates to support the plans to build a new hospital. Following the election, the campaign continued on a smaller scale to keep hospital redevelopment foremost on the agenda of political representatives.

Throughout the year, CPDMH spent time revising the business case submitted in 2008 to ensure the new facility will meet the health care needs of the community well into the future. Working in cooperation with the LHIN, the updated submission will focus on developing an amalgamated acute care/health village campus. The plan has a new look, a new service delivery model and even a name change. The scope of the vision has been enlarged to become the Carleton Place Health Village Integration Project. This change will provide the opportunity for the Hospital and community partners to share resources and potentially reduce the cost of the new building.

CPDMH will be presenting the amended business case to the LHIN Board of Directors on June 27, 2012. When the necessary approvals are received from the LHIN, the Hospital will resubmit the plan to the Ministry of Health & Long Term- Care, who must also approve the plan.
Approvals will also be required by the Provincial Cabinet and once this is obtained, the project can advance to the next major planning stage by developing a Functional Program. The functional plan will also have to be approved before construction can begin.

System integration and Change
Safe Client Handling
Throughout the year, CPDMH spent time developing a comprehensive education program to improve safe client handling. The program developed new policies and procedures to guide nurses when moving clients and provided guidance for the use of wheeled and other assistive devices. Quality patient care was further supported by providing nursing staff with information for mobility assessment and cognitive assessment as it relates to fall prevention and overall mobility.

Education regarding safe client handling will be implemented for all new hires during the orientation process. To ensure the project continues, a safe client and material handling committee will report to the Joint Occupational and Health Committee.

The program was led by front line staff and received support from Hospital administration and the Chief Nursing Officer.

Improved Communication with Patients and Visitors

During the winter of 2012, CPDMH made an effort to better engage its patients and visitors by forming a partnership with Creative Display Technologies. The company providesscreens and communications software at little or no cost to CPDMH in return for the right to sell advertising on the screen. The revenue generated from the advertising is then shared with the Hospital.

The screens are installed in the waiting rooms for the Laboratory, Ambulatory Care and Emergency Department. The units have split screens which show real time TV feed on one side and allows the Hospital to post public service announcements on the other side.

Musculoskeletal Disorders Training

Towards the end of the year, the Hospital identified a need to implement a training program to prevent musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) with its non-clinical staff. Most MSDs involve the hands, wrists, elbows, neck, and shoulders and occur with work activities that are frequent and repetitive. Early recognition of these disorders is very important because medical treatments are unlikely to be effective once these injuries become longstanding. CPDMH’s program focused on avoiding repetitive patterns of work and offered prevention strategies to reduce injury.

At the end of the training period, the Hospital was thrilled to report that 98% of its non-clinical staff participated in the program.

Clinical Improvements/Enhancements

CPDMH’s vision is to be the communities' leading partner in the provision of integrated healthcare services and the organization is constantly looking at ways to better serve the residents of our community. As a result, the Hospital began offering a dermatology clinic through the Ontario Telemedicine Network and added a sleep lab and chiropody clinic to the Hospital’s list of services in 2011-12.

The dermatology clinic began in November 2011 and with the assistance of our Telemedicine RN, digital images of the patients’ skin condition along with a completed referral form are forwarded electronically to Dr. James Walker. The information provided is reviewed by Dr. Walker and diagnosis and treatment recommendations are usually forwarded to the patients’ family doctor within a few days.

The chiropody clinic, launched on January 27, is offered in partnership with the Rideau Valley Diabetes Services and the Centertown Community Health Centre. The clinic operates once a month through the Hospital’s Ambulatory Care Department.

Chiropody focuses on the assessment, treatment and prevention of various foot disorders and the new clinic will provide foot care to high risk individuals, with diabetes.

The sleep lab began providing services on June 21^st and also operates through the Hospital’s Ambulatory Care Department from 9 pm – 6am. The lab is designed to conduct overnight sleep studies to help diagnose a wide range of sleep disorders, from insomnia and sleep apnea to snoring, narcolepsy and night movement disorders such as restless limb movement.

The service provided by the sleep lab is being conducted in partnership with the Hospital Alliance Group. The main objective of the company is to help provide diagnostic services to hospitals that might not have access to sleep and other specialists.

Health Information System

Announced in 2011, CPDMH joined Bruyère Continuing Care, Queensway Carleton Hospital, Arnprior District Memorial Hospital, The Royal Ottawa Health Care Group and Montfort Hospital in the development of a regionally shared electronic patient record to support effective and efficient patient care. The project, entitled the Champlain Association of Meditech Partners or CHAMP will continue to be a priority throughout 2012 and will increase the collaboration and communication between care providers at the participating organizations.

Representatives from each partnering hospital are part of the various planning teams to ensure there is a true collaboration of standards as the new Meditech 6.0 system is built. In January, Phase 2 of the CHAMP project was launched.

EORLA

The end of the 2011-12 and the start of the 2012-13 year brought a change in the management of CPDMH’s lab. Operations were transferred to the Eastern Ontario Region Lab Association (EORLA) on April 1 2012 to provide one integrated hospital laboratory organization for 19 licensed hospital-based clinical laboratories across the Champlain LHIN.

Patients visiting CPDMH should not see any changes in the day to day service provided by lab. Instead, EORLA will provide enhanced service to clinicians, resulting in better overall care for our patients. This includes standardization of test menus and test methodologies, as well as the implementation of a common Laboratory Information System allowing patient laboratory test data to be accessed by physicians served by EORLA.

FIPPA

On January 1, the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) was extended to include all Ontario’s hospitals, including CPDMH. In response to extension of the freedom of information (FOI), the Hospital appointed a coordinator to handle matters related to the new regulations and established associated policies to adapt to the new changes.

CPDMH has always prided itself on being transparent to the community and the new guidelines under FOI provide another avenue for the Hospital to be accountable to the community.

Patient Satisfaction

CPDMH is pleased to report that its patient satisfaction ratings continue to be slightly better than the Provincial average. Our Emergency Department received an 90.9% rating in the overall quality of care provided compared to the Provincial score of 85.1% and our Inpatient Unit received 95% as compared to the 93.2% received by the province.

The Hospital is also pleased to report that its patient length of stay in the Emergency Department continues to be one of the lowest of all the hospitals in the Champlain LHIN that choose to participate in the Emergency Department Reporting System.

A referral to the chiropody clinic can be accessed by CPDMH’s diabetes educators or self referral to the Rideau Valley Diabetes Services. A referral from your family doctor is needed to access both the sleep lab and the dermatology clinic.

Table 4: Average Length of Stay for Visits to the Emergency Department*

(Length of stay is reported in hours)

	Total Time Spent in Emergency Room
Champlain Local Health Integrated Network	9.0 hours
Carleton Place & District Memorial Hospital	3.9 hours

*Please note the length of stay is for all emergency visits. The number is not broken down to reflect the severity of symptoms presented by patients.

Some of the comments from our patients include:
The Care and Treatment the Nurses provided to our Mom during her time in the hospital show how dedicated they are to their profession. They treated her with the respect and dignity she deserved. The kindness shown to us in our time of need was greatly appreciated and above and beyond the call of duty.

I’m deeply grateful for the patience, kindness and understanding you guys showed me on the day of my surgery. The OR team made my experience so much less traumatic than it otherwise could have been. You are amazing!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for the kindness and professional care I received while I was a patient. We are not big city people but we do deserve a new more spacious, modern hospital so we can continue to do more of what we have.

A note of appreciation to the Carleton Place Hospital for the efficiency and kindness shown by the Registration Clerk & Ultrasound technician. Their proficiency in getting me through my tests earlier and back on the road before the storm took over was tremendously appreciated. Thanks you for your great service and a well-run outpatient department.