Picton hospital is the jewel in the QHC crown
Administrator | Nov 25, 2013 | Comments 1
The results are in. In a survey conducted by the National Research Corporation and the Ontario Hospital Association, the inpatient unit at Prince Edward County Memorial Hospital was named top performing hospital in Ontario for overall care in acute inpatient care in community hospitals and the 90 percentile in all hospitals combined (includes all small community and academic hospitals).
The PECMH Emergency department was also ranked in the 90 percentile for “would recommend” and “overall care” for community hospitals and all other hospitals combined. The Emergency Department at Trenton Memorial ranked in the 90 percentile in “overall satisfaction” for community hospitals. Trenton Emergency Dept. by the way treated 35,000 patients for the fiscal year 2012-13. That is only about 1200 fewer patients than seen in the emergency department at Belleville General. Of interest Trenton emergency has half the staff that Belleville has.
This patient satisfaction survey took place from April 2011 to March 2012. One year later QHC removed a number of of services and beds from both these hospitals. The amazing fact about this survey is that Picton and Trenton finished first or in the 90 percentile out of 116 acute care and 137 emergency departments. The staff at both these hospitals can be very proud of these awards. I have been told that the staff morale is very high this week.
I had worked with the staff at PECMH for over 20 years and I can tell you that they are second to none. It always amazed me that for the last 15 years even though they always had staff and service cuts “hanging over their heads” they always went about doing what they do best, looking after the sick and infirmed.
They are a staff that laugh and cry together. In fact the majority of nurses who retired over the years came back to PECMH to work on a casual basis and be part of a very caring team.
The community can be very proud of the ENTIRE staff at PECMH. Hopefully many of you will consider donating to the PECMH Foundation so that that the staff will have the latest in medical equipment to work with. I can assure you that any donations made to the PECMH Foundation will be used to purchase equipment for our local hospital. The staff have shown this community that they are “”Number One” so let’s support them by helping to provide the latest in medical technology.
The fact that that PECMH is the top performer is not a surprise to many of us that have been following healthcare in Prince Edward County. Even the late healthcare consultant Scott Rowand, who was sent in by the then Minister of Health George Smitherman in 2005 to look at the governance of QHC called PECMH the “Jewel in the Crown”.
By the way, PECMH will celebrate its 100th birthday in a little more than five years. I have written many letters to the media about our hospital over the last 13 years, however nothing gives me more pleasure than to write this letter to congratulate the entire staff at our wonderful little hospital. I think that the local media would be remiss if they did not read the report and do extensive coverage on this story. I think that the staff at both Prince Edward County Memorial and Trenton Memorial deserve no less.
Fran Renoy, Picton
Filed Under: Letters and Opinion • News from Everywhere Else
LHIN CEO Paul Huras has said “Small hospitals, like PECMH, have groups of physicians who are very, very tightly connected to the organization (I think he was refering to PECMH). Larger hospitals, on the other hand, often deal with more complex cases with more opportunities for things to go sour”. He goes on to say “this small hospital atmosphere can’t be replicated in every hospital setting”.
Mr. Huras is talking about style. He’s correct that style is more often unique.
What he OUGHT to be talking about is PROCESS and SCALE. Good outcomes can almost always be flow-charted and replicated, based on scale, into similar hospital settings.
I suspect that if the patient care process at PECMH were ever flow-charted it could easily be implemented into other hospital settings – regardless of people’s “style”.