Report to the Community

New General Surgeon Dr. Vipan Jain joins the Middlesex Hospital Alliance

New General Surgeon

Message from the Chair of the Board

Message from the President & CEO

National InfoRehab Study

Financial Health of MHA

and more!

REPORT TO THE COMMUNITY 2011

HE MIDDLESEX Hospital Alliance

(MHA) is pleased to welcome Vipan Jain, MD FACS, to our Surgical Services team in August, 2011. He joins fellow general surgeon’s Dr. Akram Elgamal and Dr. Ian Fergu-son.

Dr. Jain completed his residency at the University of Western Ontario and is a welcome addition to the de-partment of surgery. The sur-gical program has expanded in order to provide improved patient care in core services

in keeping with the MHA’s strategic plan.

Dr. Jain performs endos-copy and general surgical procedures such as gallblad-der removal, hernia repair, breast and bowel surgeries. His practice specialty is in Minimally Invasive Surgi-cal Techniques. This surgical approach is performed using laparoscopes to avoid large incisions when possible. This decreases the patient recovery time and shortens hospital stay for patients.

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What’s Inside

REPORT TO THE COMMUNITY 2010

Healthcare

Connecting with the Future of Care

One South . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Message from the Chair of the Board . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Message from the CEO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Healthcare the Dutch Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

SMGH ED Gets Lean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Special Delivery – Obstetrics at SMGH . . . . . . . . . . . 6

New Surgeon at Strathroy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

New Faces at FCHS Foundation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Auxiliary Opens Java Hut at Strathroy Hospital . . . . . . 8

FCHS & SMGH Foundations “Play Together” . . . . . . . . 8

SMGH Foundation - Together We WILL . . . . . . . . . . 9

Volunteer Appreciation Evenings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Mission, Vision and Principles renewed at MHA . . . . 10

Mental Health Providers Meet to Network . . . . . . . 11

Respirology Clinic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Diabetes Education Centre Coordinator Awarded . . 12

Strathroy Hospital at the Museum . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Emergency Prep . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

To provide the healthcare

we would expect for our

own families.

Safety for our patients,

staff and visitors

Excellence in our

performance

Respect for everyone

all the time

Value in all that we do

Enthusiasm as our

way of life

ES

RVE

Our Mission

Our VisionThe Middlesex Hospital Alliance

will be the best place for

patient-centred care; providing

excellence in quality, people,

service and financial

performance.

Mission, Vision and Principles renewed at the MHA Delivering moms and their families

appreciate the special care they receive in a healthcare setting close to home, where low volumes can allow for an excellent nursing care/patient ratio. A significant percentage of delivering moms at SMGH are returning moms, which indicates a high level of patient satisfaction. Dr. Philip Vandewalle, a family physician in Strathroy who delivers babies, says, “Moms often remark on the friendly and available nursing care during and after delivery, one mom said it was the next best thing to being at home.”

Read the full story on page 10

Read the full

story on page 6

Emergency Prep

What’s Inside

Strategic Plansee page 10

Physicians at MHAsee inside

Hip & KneeReplacementpage 6

National Info Rehab Studypage 4

MHA Quality Award page 5

REPORT TO THE COMMUNITY

2Healthcare focus page 7

R. VAISHNAV RAJGOPAL WAS WELCOMED AS THE NEWEST

ADDITION TO SUCCESSFUL HIP & KNEE JOINT REPLACEMENT PROGRAM team at the MHA, last fall. Dr. Rajgopal is an orthopaedic surgeon and graduate of the University of Western Ontario where he received his medical degree and recently completed a fellowship in adult reconstructive joint surgery.

The MHA Hip & Knee Program has received much praise from peers and patients since it started in 2006. It has been commended for excellent wait times, compared with both the provincial averages and targets, and it has been praised for patient satisfaction.

The success of the MHA Hip & Knee Program relies on a team approach including the MHA physiotherapy and nursing staff and external partners such as CCAC who assist patients pre- and post-operatively. Dr. Paul Ferner, chief of staff at SMGH, says, “The program continues to thrive at the MHA.”

Mike Mazza, MHA CEO, says, “A community hospital such as Strathroy has the capacity to provide just this sort of program successfully and efficiently. Patients can be referred for Total Joint Replacement surgery here – close to home – instead of having to travel to more distant hospitals.”

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New Surgeon at Strathroy

The successful Hip & Knee Joint Replacement Program at Strathroy hospital welcomed the newest addition to the team, Dr. Vaishnav Rajgopal, orthopaedic surgeon. If the name sounds familiar, Vai’s father, Dr. C. Rajgopal, is a well-known surgeon in London Ontario, where Vai grew up.

Message from Cheryl WatersChair of the Middlesex Hospital Alliance Board of Directors

We automatically think of hospitals as places to seek immediate medi-

cal attention. While this remains vitally important, we also know that our two sites in Newbury and Strathroy are unique hubs of wellness and health for the communities that we serve.

Our Professional Staff work as a col-laborative team using their expertise and leverage new tech-nology to provide high quality patient care as we work to meet the demands of an ageing population in our region.

Highlights of the past year include continued enhance-ments through ‘LEAN’ initiatives to enhance the way we serve patients by improving access, quality and safety; the merging of our Professional Medical Staff at our two hospital sites; expansion of our surgical services program and the use of minimally invasive surgical techniques leading to shorter hospital stays and quicker recovery for patients; our Hip & Knee Total Joint Replacement program was highlighted when it surpassed the 1000th patient to receive surgery; and also the achievement of our Rehabilitation department when it was selected to participate in the National Inforehab Research Study.

Dr. Pravin Shah retired on December 31, 2011 after more than 37 years of service. Dr. Valdine Pusey also retired in October 2011 following a dedicated career in paediatrics. We thank them both for their dedication to patients and wish them all the best in retirement.

The MHA Board, the Executive and staff are grateful to the community for its ongoing support of our organization.

I would also like to thank and recog-nize our two Chiefs of Staff - Drs. Jon Dreyer and Paul Ferner, our Chief Executive Officer Mike Mazza and his administration team.

Improving health care quality is an ongo-ing team effort that all of us have a role to play. Patients, physicians, nurses, staff, volunteers and Board members can help to make decisions, we can all care about our health together.

Cheryl WatersBoard ChairMiddlesex Hospital Alliance

“Our Professional Staff work as a collaborative team using their expertise and leverage new technology to provide high quality patient care as we work to meet the demands of an ageing population in our region.”

Cheryl WatersBoard Chair







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A Message from Michael A. MazzaChief Executive Officer, Middlesex Hospital Alliance

Healthcare focus page 4

VER THE PAST SEVERAL YEARS THE MHA HAS RECOGNIZED THE

IMPORTANCE – THE NECESSITY – OF BEING “CONNECTED.” The concept is in our tagline, “connecting with the future of care,” and we have invested in technology and partnered with larger regional organizations (the Thames Valley Health Partnership, TeleHealth Ontario) to ensure that we are connected to medical resources beyond our own two sites. In this way we are able to access, for example, off-site radiologists to read CT scans and off-site psychiatrists for videoconference patient consultations.

However, we also recognize the value of communicating internally. One of the most active communications links at the MHA these days is our growing Intranet. Last summer, the IT department at the MHA held a “Name our Intranet” contest. The winning name: The MHA Insider!

An Intranet is an internal website. It works as a website that is built by and for a defined group, in this instance, the staff, physicians and board members of the MHA. The MHA Insider is available to all staff when at work and can be

logged onto from outside the hospitals by board members and off-site staff, for example, working from home.

Many who work at the MHA start their day logging onto the Insider to check email, look at the cafeteria menu, check for updates on team or department “web pages” and even look to the calendar and events page for news and activities available to staff. It’s a bit like a digital bulletin board.

In the world of communication technology an Intranet is a “pull” rather than a “push.” This means people come to it for information and news rather than having it pushed to them, for example via email. Documents don’t need to be attached and emailed back and forth between departments. Instead they can be “posted” to the Insider for the appropriate department members to view or for the group to work on. In some ways, the Intranet is like an interactive, well-indexed filing cabinet.

But we haven’t ignored updates to our external MHA website. Since its redesign in 2006, we continue to expand it, recognizing its importance in helping us connect with community stakeholders.

This Community Report, for instance, is available on the MHA website – saving money and trees. And, this year we open a new “portal” on the MHA website – Health Info Online – an online library of healthcare information. Here you can view hundreds of digital entries on everything from rabies to dressing wounds and baby care, all from trusted healthcare sources.

A Message from Michael A. Mazza, Chief Executive Officer, MHA

OPeople make history, and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when coura-geous, skillful leaders seize the oppor-tunity to change things for the better. - Harry S. Truman

This quote very suitably describes the operating year of 2010/11 for the

Middlesex Hospital Alliance (MHA). We commend all of our staff, physicians and volunteers for their flexibility as we transi-tion to new ways of providing the care that we each would expect for our own family.

Under the Board of Director’s guidance, our two hospital sites have met the perfor-mance standards for 2010-2011; continued to develop our annual Quality Improve-ment Plan and are actively engaged with the South West Local Health Integration Network (SW LHIN) in working towards voluntary integration.

I can think of no other institution in our region that has touched the lives of so many people from all walks of life. When you mention either of our hospital sites, most people have an immediate emotional and positive reaction.

We must continue to evaluate and man-age operations so that our longer term role and vision revolve around regional popula-tion demographics, market share analysis, emerging best practices in Canada and other counties, technological advances and sustainable clinical services built on evi-dence based medicine in order to ensure that the MHA is a viable ‘organization of excellence’, addressing the healthcare needs of its community - now and in the future.

Mike MazzaPresident & CEO Middlesex Hospital Alliance

“I can think of no other organization in our region that has touched the lives of so many people. When you mention either of our hospital sites, most people have an immediate positive reaction.”

Mike MazzaPresident & CEO

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MHA Participates in National Info Rehab National Research Study

very year, about 145,000 Canadians are hospital-

ized because of hip fracture. Over the last year, the Middle-sex Hospital Alliance began par-ticipating in a 5-year research project called InfoRehab, fund-ed by the Canadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR).

This study looks at how a patients need for information changes as they receive care for their hip fracture injury from different health providers and throughout their recovery.

“In this research, we’re not looking at the actual care these folks receive, rather we want to learn more about how they use information,” explained Dr. Bert Chesworth of the University of Western Ontario at a recent open house presentation at Strathroy Middlesex General Hospital (SMGH).

Data has been collected from five hospitals across Canada including Vancouver, Kitchener, Waterloo and the two hospital sites managed by the Middlesex Hospital Alliance: Four Coun-ties Health Services in Newbury and Strathroy Middlesex Gen-eral Hospital.

“Previous research projects show that information transfer and communication is a ma-jor issue for patients and their families. Hip fracture patients are interesting to study for two reasons. They usually receive care from numerous health care providers including surgeons, physiotherapists, occupational

therapists and nurses. Their care journey often takes them to several settings such as acute care, rehabilitation, home care and long-term care. This means we can learn about information flow between health care pro-viders within and between set-tings, as well as communication between providers, patients and their family mem-bers,” said Dr. Ches-worth.

The results showed that fam-ily in-volve-ment is essential during times when the patient is moved home, to a long-term care facility, retirement home or short-term placement.

They also noted that establish-ing trust and respect is essential between patients and health care providers.

Finally, “Best Practices” for sharing of patient information was developed within a hospi-tal setting. However, this may not necessarily apply to rural patients with hip fractures who move from hospital to home or other facilities as research has not yet been completed for this type of transfer yet.

“We’re excited about being part of this project and provid-ing the rural perspective. At our hospital sites we are faced with unique challenges related to information flow, distance, availability of services and expectation about personalized care,” said Loretta Bourke, Man-ager Rehabilitation, Middlesex

Hospital Alliance.

On May 25th, re-sults were shared with the commu-nity by Strathroy Middlesex General Hospital

(SMGH) staff, and partners

from the University of West-ern Ontario including Dr. Bert Chesworth. The SMGH physio gym was filled with displays about the research project to facilitate a two-way exchange of information with activities designed to gather further opin-ions and ideas.

“The turnout was amazing – 75 people came by to learn about the project,” said Bourke.

Pictured above (left-right): Dr Bert Chesworth; Loretta Bourke, Manager Rehabilitation MHA; Helen Johnson and Jacobi Elliot Masters of physical therapy.







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It’s Hip to be Healthy - 1000th Patient Total Joint Replacement Celebration

“JOINT” CELEBRATION held by the Middlesex

Hospital Alliance (MHA) marked an orthopedic milestone or the organization.

The 1,000th orthopaedic joint replacement surgery was com-pleted during the summer, and an open house to celebrate that accomplishment was held on Thursday, Sept. 22.

A capacity crowd of over 200 spilled into the hospital lobby that included a presentation by orthopedic surgeon Dr. Vaish-nav Rajgopal.

Before the hip and knee joint replacement program was start-ed in December of 2006, most patients in the area would wait an average of two years. Statis-tics show the average wait time from consultation to surgery has dropped to just over 120 days.

Many who attended were former patients who had joint replacements.

During her remarks MHA board chair Cheryl Waters said she was shocked to learn that five years ago, wait times for someone needing a hip or knee

replacement was at least 50 months.

“That access to joint replace-ment surgery and the subse-quent care needed for patients was impeded because people were required to travel to other hospitals,” said Waters. “Those statistics are the reasons MHA was called to act.”

Having achieved 1,000 surger-ies in five short years, the MHA board is hopeful that funding for this program will continue.

Article continued on next page...

HAPPY PATIENTS - By raising their hand, dozens of people indicated they had received either a new hip or knee through the joint replacement program at the Middlesex Hospital Alliance on September 22nd during the Hip & Knee Joint Community Celebration

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To view Dr. Rajgopal’s presentation on arthritis from the Total Joint Replacement Celebration last September, please visit: http://www.mhalliance.on.ca/news/joint-replacement-celebration/

Watch Arthritis Video Online







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Article continued...

“The MHA will be formally re-questing the Southwest LHIN include funding for this pro-gram as part of the hospital’s base funding so there is no chance that residents in our re-gion will lose this vital service,” said Waters. “MHA has become a leader in providing total hip and knee joint replacement for those who need them.”

For MHA chief operating offi-cer Nancy Maltby, base funding is vital to the program.

“The more patients we can

help, the better,” said Maltby. “Base funding will allow us to do that.”

According Dr. Rajgopal, arthritis is one of leading causes for knee and hip replacement.

“The main rea-son a patient might have joint replace-ment surgery is to reduce pain,” said Dr. Rajgopal. “One’s quality of life improves greatly when they are pain free.”

Orthopaedic surgeon Dr. Vaishnav Rajgopal (middle) was joined by Middlesex Hospital Alliance staff including COO Nancy Maltby (left), as well as MHA board chair Cheryl Waters (right), along with Maria Van Bom-mel and Loreena Dixon, representing local MP Bev Shipley.

FCHS Foundation Cash That Cares Lottery

Congratulations to all the winners of the Cash That Cares Lottery winners!

Margaret Stenger of Bothwell won the $15,000 cash grand prize. Doug & Barb Reycraft won the $8,000 cash secondary prize and David Maika won the third cash prize of $5,000. Dan & Marie Webb won $1,000.

There were also 5 prizes of

$200 each. Winners of the $200 prize draws include Bruce Parks, Jennifer Grover, Ruth Griffiths & Shannon Hagle (shared ticket purchase), Tom Jeffery, and Mary Bodnar.

Greg Beecroft, Donald Cox, Kevin Bell, Trudy Visetin and Joan Horvat each won $100 early bird prizes.

“We truly appreciate the over-

whelming support that these ticket sales represent for FCHS Foundation. Thank you to all supporters for buying a ticket in our exciting sweepstakes dur-ing its first year,” says Debbie Munn, Development Officer, FCHS Foundation.

Get ready for the 2012 Cash that Cares Lottery, for more info visit www.cashthatcares.ca.

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