Patients home sooner, major investments, more services – in Rouge Valley’s annual report

Dec. 19, 2011 — Regional cardiac services, huge expansion, new transitional care service, new magnetic resonance imaging scanner, surgical pre-screening, lab accreditation, big investments in equipment and facilities and more are packed into Rouge Valley Health System’s annual report.

“Our review of achievements and challenges of the last year demonstrates the improvements in patient care by our Board of Directors, staff, physicians and volunteers. I’m proud to say the annual report proves that our concentrated effort using our Lean approach is making a difference to our patients as more and more of them come to see us for excellent health care,” says Rik Ganderton, president and chief executive officer of Rouge Valley Health System (RVHS).

“Our annual report is organized under the four strategic dimensions of our new Strategic Plan On-A-Page: access to care; service excellence; fiscal responsibility; and team engagement,” he explains.

Here are a few tangible examples of what the achievements of the last year have meant to patients, thanks to the teamwork of staff and physicians at Rouge Valley’s two hospital campuses:

• Patients spend less time waiting to be transferred from ambulances, and wait less to get care in emergency departments;

• Nurses spend more time caring for patients as a result of having more organized work areas;

• Hospital beds are better utilized with less time between patients, meaning people needing care are getting it more quickly;

• Improved patient discharge planning, so that people go home to their families as soon as they are ready;

• Less re-admission of patients than in the past;

• Virtually no cancelled surgeries now because RVHS screens patients more effectively, making sure they are fit for their procedures. This benefits the patients and the hospital by making the best use of our resources everyday;

• And more listed in our new online annual report.

These achievements exemplify the hospital’s commitment to its new Patient Declaration of Values, also developed and launched in 2011.

“We’ve also proven that quality care is directly connected to fiscal responsibility. We closed out our three-year deficit elimination plan in 2011, which put us in a position to make considerable investments that our patients needed,” Ganderton says. “We have earned surpluses in each of the last three years, rebuilt our working capital, invested the cash generated by surpluses in new equipment and facility refurbishment to the tune of $36.1 million in the last three years. We have also improved the quality of care we have delivered and have grown patient volumes particularly in our emergency departments, where we anticipate seeing almost 120,000 patients this year – a growth of 26 per cent since 2007. We have also increased surgical volumes and decreased surgical wait times.”

For more information and to read the hospital’s annual report, please visit www.rougevalley.ca/annual-report-2011.

Rouge Valley Health System (RVHS) — The best at what we do.

RVHS is an excellent acute care community hospital with many programs, including 24/7/365 emergency, obstetrics, paediatrics, cardiac care and mental health. Rouge Valley consists of several health sites, including two community hospital campuses: Rouge Valley Centenary in east Toronto; and Rouge Valley Ajax and Pickering in west Durham. Together, a team of physicians, nurses and many other professionals care for a broad spectrum of health conditions. Working in consultation and partnership with community members, other hospitals, health care organizations, the Central East Local Health Integration Network and the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, Rouge Valley continues to improve its programs and cater to the needs of the growing communities of east Toronto, Ajax, Pickering and Whitby.

Contact

David Brazeau
Director
Public Affairs, Community Relations and Telecommunications
Rouge Valley Health System
647-294-8885
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