our shared purpose newsletter - november 2018...our shared purpose november 2018 welcome to canada...
TRANSCRIPT
OUR SHAREDPURPOSE
November 2018
Welcome to Canada Specialized
clinic provides support to children
with chronic illnesses (pg. 2)
Support to the end Providence’s
pallative program cares for patients
and their families (pg. 7)
New glucose meters going network-wide How this new technology is making a difference (pg. 3)
Take a picture A new program at St. Joseph’s that’s impacting mental health clients (pg. 8)
What it takes toinnovate (pg. 4)
RESEARCH101
OUR SHARED PURPOSE2 OUR SHARED PURPOSE 3
Sara says her “heart feels warm” every time she thinks about the
team at the Newcomers to Canada Clinic at
St. Michael’s Hospital.
Shortly after her family of three immigrated to Montreal from
Sudan last October, Sara’s nine-year-old son Mohamed, who lives
with cerebral palsy, began having issues with his feeding tube. This
landed them in an emergency department where Sara was told that
Mohamed’s complex condition would be best cared for in Toronto, at
the Newcomers to Canada Clinic.
By December, the family was settled in Toronto and amazed with
the immediate support they were receiving at the clinic.
“We were newcomers and we don’t have family or friends here
so they really helped us a lot. They contacted Mohamed’s school
board and got him registered, they set up him with Wheel-Trans
service, and they applied for funds to get him medical supplies,”
explains Sara.
The Newcomers to Canada Clinic serves infants and adolescents
with chronic illness who are new to Canada. After diagnosing and
treating its young patients, the clinic connects their families with
primary-care providers, specialists, schools, and resources in the
community to help ensure they have immediate access to the social
services they need.
“We developed a model of care that recognizes the issues
facing immigrants and refugee families and children. We incorporate
interpretation services and address issues such as social determinants
of health and barriers to care,” says Dr. Tony Barozzino, one of the two
physician leads of the clinic.
Dr. Shazeen Suleman, the other physician lead at the clinic, was
the first point of contact for Sara.
“These families are incredibly resilient. To arrive in a new
country motivated by the pursuit of life takes a lot of courage and
drive. Recognizing that resilience positions our clinic in more of an
empowerment role than a charitable role.”
WelcomingnewcomersThis clinic helps families
settle in the community
by Selma Al-Samarrai
Want more information?bit.ly/2Qru9r8
The rollout of new glucose meters this month at St. Michael’s is a
win, win, win, says medical technical specialist Liivi Pormeister.
The Nova StatStrip meters are much easier for nurses to use,
patients can count on getting more reliable test results, and it’s
an example of a network-wide approach to embracing a new
technology, says Pormeister.
“We’d get complaints from nurses trying to scan their badge like
20 times,” Pormeister says of the frustrations with the older glucose
meters, “and if you have inaccurate glucose results from your meters
then your insulin dosing will be off as well.
“This is a benefit all around, for the operators, for the patients,
everybody.”
To help with training and preparation for the rollout, Pormeister
visited St. Joseph’s - which began using the meters late last year - and
got advice on implementation from point-of-care technical specialist
Sarah Kim.
“It’s helping a lot with our implementation, so it wasn’t completely
new when we saw it here for the first time. Sarah gave me a lot of tips
on things that helped when she was implementing,” Pormeister says.
In addition to ease of use, the Nova StatStrip is the only glucose
meter approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for critically
ill patients, notes Daniel Beriault, head of St. Michael’s division of
biochemistry.
“As a trauma and acute care hospital we have a lot of critically ill
patients so that’s incredibly important to us,” says Beriault.
“In the last several years a high number of adverse patient
events have been traced to the use of less accurate glucose meters
in hospitals in the U.S. This meter will provide the highest level of
accuracy for all our patients.”
The glucose meters are expected to go in service mid-month at
St. Michael’s and in the new year at Providence.
Our Shared Purpose is a monthly newsletter highlighting our people and the ways they are improving care, patient experience and the health of our communities.
Learn more: www.oursharedpurpose.com
Accuracysaves lives
New glucose meters are
rolling out across the network
by Michael Oliveira
Liivi Pormeister shows off
the new Nova StatStrip
glucose meter while
Daniel Beriault holds
the older meter that’s
being replaced.
Pictured here are doctors
Shazeen Suleman and
Tony Barozzino, the
two physician leads for
St.Michael’s Newcomers
to Canada Clinic.
So youwant to do research?Researchers conduct innovative
research to keep our network on
the cutting edge of health care.
Though sometimes glamorous in
the end, research requires some
serious hustle, and often years to
complete. In celebration of
Research Month, we go behind the
scenes to see what it takes to
generate new knowledge.
Think of an innovative potential
solution to a problem or gap in
knowledge.
Develop aresearch question
• Find collaborators
• Explore funding options
• Conduct lit reviews
• Collect pilot data
Do the pre-study work
• Open necessary accounts
• Hire staff and students
Start theresearch!
• Work with Survey
Research Unit
Collect the data
1. 2.
Submit to the Research Ethics Board and funding contracts to the ORA
3.• Fill out fundng applications
• Submit application to the Office of
Research Administration (ORA)
• Piggy back onto an ongoing project
Obtain funding/support
4.
5.6.
8.• Work with the Applied
Health Research
Centre (AHRC)
• Submit progress
reports to funding
agencies
Analyze thedata
7.
Draw conclusions
and submit final
reports
9. 10.Share your new
knowledge• Publish
• Commercialize
• Communicate
START
280research
ersIn our network
we have over...-980researchstaff
$70in revenue fromresearchmillion
Coffee Break!
240students
1400researchpapers published$14
in Canadian Institute
s
of Health Research
funding
Celebrate!
million
Research Month
OUR SHARED PURPOSE6 OUR SHARED PURPOSE 7
November 17 is the 50th anniversary of the first successful heart transplant in Canada, performed at St. Michael’s by Dr. Clare Baker. The patient was Charles Perrin Johnston, who lived for over six years with his new heart. Dr. Baker was born in Saskatchewan and earned his medical degree from the University of Toronto in 1946. In 1953 he became chief of thoracic surgery at St. Michael’s, where he performed vascular, thoracic and closed heart surgery before becoming involved in the new field of open heart surgery. After South Africa’s Christian Barnard performed the world’s first heart transplant in 1967, teams around the world began performing the surgery, but most of the patients died soon afterward. Johnston survived longer than any other heart transplant recipient in the world at that time. Dr. Baker was named a member of the Order of Canada in 2002 and died in 2010.
NEW NICU DESIGNATION AT ST. JOE’S
CANADA’S FIRST HEART TRANSPLANT
When getting ready to welcome a new baby into their family, the last thing parents want to think about is intensive care. But many babies require additional support before they can go home – which is where the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) comes in. These specialized departments are equipped to support babies until they’re able to breathe and feed on their own. St. Joseph’s had been providing support as a Level 2B NICU and recently received a designation upgrade to Level 2C to care for sicker and smaller babies. “We can now provide care to babies anywhere from 30 weeks gestation upwards, compared to our previous 32,” says Dr. Jessie van Dyk, division head of the NICU. “This means that babies born elsewhere can also be transferred back to us sooner so families can be closer to home.”
SHARING MEDICAL IMAGING DATA TO CUT RADIATION DOSESPatients might expect radiation doses for CT scans to be comparable from one hospital to the next, but a team at St. Michael’s Hospital says the dose variance can be startling. The team is collecting and analyzing data from eight hospitals for the Medical Imaging Metadata Repository of Ontario (MIMRO) to help reduce the province’s average radiation dose per scan. Using artificial intelligence to sort the hospitals’ data, the team generated comparative data by facility, scanner and exam to help determine best practices. MIMRO is funded primarily by St. Michael’s and was created by two of its radiologists, Drs. Timothy Dowdell and Bruce Gray.
Radiologist Dr. Bruce Gray and data analyst Lianne Concepcion review data submitted to MIMRO. (Photo: Katie Cooper)
MAKING MEANING OUT OF DATA
Imagine if an online tool could help forecast patient volumes in hospitals, or foresee the amount of supply needed to meet a demand. With a new tool created by the Li Ka Shing Centre for Healthcare Analytics and Training (LKS-CHART), this is now a reality. Most recently, the LKS-CHART team used this tool to examine the accuracy of an estimate for the number of deaths in Puerto Rico after a hurricane. The LKS-CHART tool corroborated the findings, and a research letter on their work has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine. “This recent publication is a demonstration of an in-house developed tool being used at the highest levels of science,” says Dr. Amol Verma, a researcher at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute. “It shows that our team at St. Michael’s is helping to make meaning out of data.”
Michael Pasquale and his mother, Rosie, always had fond
memories of Providence Healthcare. Close family members
had received exceptional care there and when the time came
to seek palliative care for Rosie, Providence was the only place
she wanted to be.
Providence’s Palliative Care program houses a 35-bed unit –
making it one of the province’s largest hospital programs – and staff
are committed to maintaining comfort, managing pain, and fostering
dignity for the dying.
Pasquale was his mother’s primary caregiver as she started
requiring more intensive care.
“We spent lots of time together and I cherished that; I wanted to
be able to care for her as she aged. But it was a difficult role for a son
because it was very personal, like bathing and dressing her,” he says.
“She had so many falls and I was nervous all the time. Ultimately,
she had a terrible fall that changed everything. Her mind was sharp
but her body was deteriorating quickly.”
In a hospital after the last fall, Pasquale, Rosie, and her doctor
recognized that palliative care was the best option.
Pasquale clearly remembers his Mom’s conversation with her
doctor. “She told him, ‘If I can go to Providence, I’ll be happy.’”
Providence renovated and relocated the program in 2016, with
great care taken in designing the environment and services to support
both patients and their loved ones.
In addition to a contemporary and home-like patient unit,
the new Family and Caregiver Floor includes two overnight suites
for family members needing to stay close by, a children’s room, a
business office, and a multi-faith prayer room.
Respite care is offered for up to two weeks to give caregivers
time for rest and renewal. Caregivers can use the time for self-care,
a vacation, or to manage professional obligations.
There’s also a “return home” option for patients who choose to
die at home after having their symptoms managed at Providence.
And patients can seamlessly return to Providence if things don’t go
as planned at home.
For the Pasquales, Providence’s program gave them the best
gift of all: peace of mind.
“We both felt at peace that Providence was her last stop. Her
doctor, nurses, and everyone on the unit were so good, and I always
felt taken care of too. She was safe. That’s all we could have wanted.”
Dr. Clare Baker, the surgeon who performed Canada’s first successful heart transplant at St. Michael’s Hospital on November 17, 1968.
Julie Pigozzo was able to spend more time with her baby Reese when she was transferred to her community hospital, St. Joseph’s.
The LKS-CHART team, including (L to R) Josh Murray, Dr. Muhammad Mamdani and Dr. Amol Verma created a tool that can forecast future data.
Peaceof mindPalliative care program supports
families with end of life
by Emily Dawson
Michael Pasquale,
pictured in the Patient
and Family Lounge,
visits the program
where his mother
spent her final days.
(Photo: Ramon Syyap)
OUR SHARED PURPOSE8
Art and therapy are being combined in an innovative new
program at St. Joseph’s that helps people manage their mental
health.
Outpatient mental health clients can join a six-week photography
group where members work together creating unique images and art
all while in a safe and supportive environment.
“The only requirements were that they feel comfortable enough
to talk about their work and to go out and take pictures,” said Sara
Salahub, occupational therapist in the mental health program and
one of the club’s creators. “If they want to share how their mental
illness affects them, they are welcome to, but never are they asked to
disclose.”
The hope for members is the group takes away their stresses and
creates confidence - by seeing something meaningful within, Salahub
believes it can build and spread to other parts of their life.
“Photography has been a part of my life for a long time, but this is
more than just about photos. Now I’m able to ask what emotion does
that evoke, and answer what does something mean to me? It gets me
in touch with myself and it’s helping my mental health and wellness,”
said Gero, one of the group’s members.
The assignments ranged from subjects on street photography
to urban landscape and perspectives. “It takes me a while to get the
perfect shot, but that’s what I like about it,” said Alvin, another member.
“Instead of worrying about the things I can’t control, it lets me focus on
the moment. It makes me super happy.”
The photography group was made possible by funding from
ImagineIF, the hospital’s Innovation Fund that is supported by a
generous donation. A gallery unveiling is happening this month to show
off the members’ pictures centred on the theme “What is Wellness to
you.”
Life through a new lensPhotography group promotes
mental wellness
by Ramon Syyap
A gallery at St. Joseph’s
will feature several
pictures taken by the
group’s members.
(Photo: Ramon Syyap)
Occupational therapist Sara Salahub (middle) discusses an
assignment with the photography group. (Photo: Ramon Syapp)