Quality Improvement Plan
In April 2016, Almonte General Hospital (AGH) and Carleton Place and District Memorial Hospital (CPDMH) created the Mississippi River Health Alliance (MRHA) with the goal of providing the highest level of health care to their communities. Both hospitals are located west of Ottawa and serve a catchment population of over 30,000. A wide range of acute and continuing care services are offered including 24/7 emergency services, diagnostics (Lab, DI), physiotherapy, Medical/Surgical beds, level one Obstetrical Unit, Ambulatory Care, Perioperative Services and Complex Continuing Care beds. In addition, AGH operates Almonte Fairview Manor (FVM), a 112 bed Long Term Care Home located on the AGH campus, as well as the Lanark County Paramedic Service (LCPS).
The goal of the integrated relationship between AGH and CPDMH is to create efficiencies with quality improvement initiatives and leverage the work involved. This year's Quality Improvement Plan (QIP) further aligns those efficiencies with the newly formed Joint Quality Committee. With the exception of FVM, the indicators for both hospitals are the same. Under the safety dimension, the MRHA continues to focus on staff safety and will extend the reporting of and actions need with unsafe conditions/violent incidents across our various programs. With new patient satisfaction data from the Qualtrics implementation we aim to understand the new data surrounding discharge processes and build upon previous work on implementing best practices to keep patients at home after our care. This aligns with other patient/resident centered care activity that will delve into residents who experience worsening pain, and the team will address improvements which will enhance outcomes and increase comfort levels in this fragile population at FVM. Choosing Wisely guidelines for daily bloodwork collection, understanding safe IV pump operations and growing our staff’s knowledge on DEIB (diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging) will impact our effective care domain through baseline line data collection, proper utilization of drug libraries and focused education for our staff translating to better outcomes for our patients/residents. Finally, under the care theme, our work with decreasing falls for all patients/residents needs to pyramid further during this QIP so that we can identify where moderate to serious injuries occur and work harder at preventing those adverse events.