Quality at Sinai Health

In 2016, Sinai Health developed a five-year set of Quality Aims to define what the best high-quality care looks like for the complex and highly specialized patients across our hospitals. These aims form the scaffolding for our year-over-year Quality Improvement Plan. Looking ahead to 2019/20, we will be completing those initiatives while mapping out future performance expectations. Some highlights of improvements made over the past three years include:

REDUCING CRITICAL FALLS WITH NEW FLOORING TECHNOLOGY

Falls in hospitals continue to occur, particularly among older adults (age 65+). Often causing serious injuries, falls can have a traumatic impact on vulnerable patients and significantly reduce quality of life. Sinai Health has focused on preventative strategies, including the installation of SmartCells® cushioned flooring, first at our Bridgepoint Active Healthcare and now at Mount Sinai Hospital, which reduces the force of impact by up to five times compared to regular foam mats. That has translated to an average of 10-16 fewer critical falls per year.

EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT WAIT TIMES

Mount Sinai continues to be the top performer, with the lowest average emergency wait times among acute teaching hospitals in the province. A number of focused improvements have been made, including making ultrasound machines available at the bedside, reducing the average wait time for those scans by 30 minutes. Bedside ultrasound has now been implemented as a standard practice on weekdays.

IMPROVING THE PATIENT DISCHARGE EXPERIENCE

The transition from hospital to home can be a stressful time for patients and families. As part of our goal of patient-centred care, we implemented a Patient Oriented Discharge Summary (PODS), an easy-to -understand tool to arm patients and caregivers with the information they need as they plan to leave the hospital. The implementation of PODS for our Bridgepoint patients has improved our satisfaction rating from 44 to 56 per cent since 2016.