Administrative Professionals Day (April 27) recognizes and celebrates the work of secretaries, administrative assistants, executive assistants and other office professionals for their contributions to the workplace. Thank you to all of the amazing administrative professionals at our Hospital, Thunder Bay Regional Health Research Institute and Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Foundation for your dedication, knowledge and hard work. Today, we celebrate YOU!
The Earth Day 2022 theme is Invest In Our Planet. What Will You Do? See earthday.org for ideas on what individuals and organizations can do to make a difference. We need to act (boldly), innovate (broadly), and implement (equitably). It’s going to take all of us. All in. Businesses, governments, and citizens — everyone accounted for, and everyone accountable. A partnership for the planet.
Our Hospital’s Green Team is proud of the initiatives that have been accomplished over the last few years – namely a number of energy savings projects, increased recycling, increased diversion of waste, and a number of initiatives to source products that can be composted or more easily recycled. Come see our display in the cafeteria glass cabinet. Also, we are currently starting to plan for what is next – and will reach out to get your input in the coming months.
For Earth Day 2022, together, for everyone, everything, every day. It’s time to Invest In Our Planet.
Happy Earth Day, from the Green Team!
This Tuesday, April 12th is CaRMS Match Day for our 4th year Medical Students. Match Day is a defining moment in a medical student’s career. It’s the day they learn which residency program they’ve matched with and where they’ll be spending the next several years training in their specialty.
To celebrate this day, a map of Canada will be posted in the Professional Staff and Learner Lounge for the students to pin their match location and specialty.
Please take some time to thank our graduating class of medical students for their contributions over this past year. You’ll recognize them by the red lanyards they wear. Academics would like to acknowledge the resilience and perseverance of this class while, studying, rounding, and providing patient care in the face of a global pandemic. The students last day on site will be April 17th.
Congratulations to all from Academic Affairs!
Medical Laboratory Professionals at Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre (consisting of nearly 170 individual staff) work tirelessly 24-7, 365 days a year to support our Hospital’s programs and services and the region by providing quality results for timely diagnosis and treatment. Caring for patients and families of Northwestern Ontario is their number one priority.
Join us in celebrating Medical Laboratory Week (April 10-16).
Ethical questions arise in all areas of our Hospital. Our faces of ethics feature highlights different roles/departments in our organization and how ethics is relevant to their work.
What does your department do & how is ethics relevant to you?
The Financial Services portfolio includes a number of departments, functions and services: financial accounting, patient accounts, insurance billing, cashier office and collections, payroll and staff scheduling systems, research and business services, budget, internal audit, analytics and management reporting.
One of the guiding principles for the Financial Services portfolio is adherence to a set of ethical standards and guidelines. Not only does this principle include the Hospital’s policy on code of conduct but also the Chartered Professional Accountants of Ontario (CPA) Code of Professional Conduct. The CPA code identifies five fundamental principles of ethics: professional behaviour, integrity and due care, objectivity, professional competence and confidentiality.
What ethical issues come up in your area?
Our team deals with sensitive information with the highest level of due care and confidentiality. We conduct ourselves in a manner that will maintain the portfolio’s good reputation and comply with the laws and regulations that govern the accounting profession and Hospital. We engage with an independent external audit firm each year to test our internal controls and validate the Hospital’s year-end financial results. We demonstrate honesty and integrity in those business and professional relationships.
As technology, legislation and best practices change, we ensure that we stay up to date on recent developments so that we can continue to exercise sound judgement and decision making. Our mandate includes fiscal accountability and stewardship in the protection of the Hospital’s financial resources. We believe that a critical component of trust is making unbiased and objective decisions and recommendations that protect and benefit the Hospital.
We serve all employees, patients, families, visitors, management and governance and comply with numerous national standards and external agencies in our reporting and processes. We are committed to excellence, quality improvement, life-long learning and the highest ethical standards.
Ethics affects us all. Anyone struggling with an ethics question can contact the Bioethicist for support or access decision-making resources on the intranet.
Bioethicist: Michelle Allain – allainm@tbh.net, Ext. 6538
Ethical questions arise in all areas of our Hospital. Our faces of ethics feature highlights different roles/departments in our organization and how ethics is relevant to their work.
What do you do & how is ethics relevant to you?
I support hyperacute and acute Stroke best practice in the Regional and local hospitals of Northwestern Ontario. Geography in Northwestern Ontario makes it challenging to build systems that get patients to the right care as fast as possible. With limited regional resources, the Northwestern Ontario Regional Stroke Network team is constantly mindful of how we collaborate with system partners. Stroke treatment is extremely time sensitive and depending on recourses, weather, patient condition we are met with ethical dilemmas on how to move patients from Regional locations or communities to stroke care.
What ethical issues come up in your area?
Ensuring patients get timely stroke care can come with large transportation costs, increase cost of diagnostic work up, transporting patients away from community or family support or removal of community ambulance for long time durations. As a Regional Network, we are consistently learning from our Regional stalk holders to customize stroke care depending on resource availability, geography and occurrence of stroke.
Ethics affects us all. Anyone struggling with an ethics question can contact the Bioethicist for support or access decision-making resources on the intranet.
Bioethicist: Michelle Allain – allainm@tbh.net, Ext. 6538
Ethical questions arise in all areas of our Hospital. Our faces of ethics feature highlights different roles/departments in our organization and how ethics is relevant to their work.
What does your department do?
The pharmacy department is responsible for supplying medications to all patient care areas in the hospital. Pharmacy can be divided in to the operational functions of drug distribution such as procuring, manufacturing, compounding, and dispensing medications as well as clinical services such as clinically reviewing every order for appropriateness, dosing and monitoring antibiotics and total parenteral nutrition, medication reconciliation, drug therapy monitoring, and adjusting doses based on renal function to name but a few.
What ethics questions come up in your area?
Various ethical issues come up in our area. Pharmacy is often seen as the ‘gatekeepers of the drug supply’. This has been especially true during the pandemic where supplies of certain medications, specifically new therapeutics for COVID-19 have been limited. Balancing individual patient needs with our responsibility to work within provincial eligibility requirements is a common resource allocation scenario.
Matters of conscience & personal choice (autonomy) also come up for us in the decision to participate in Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD). Pharmacist are involved in processing and checking the accuracy of the orders as well as dispensing the products to the physician and submitting documentation to health Canada, while technicians are involved in the physical preparation of the medications.
As health care providers who specialize in medications, substance use disorder and addictions are also a growing source of patient referrals. At times the health care system can seem set up to treat the symptom (e.g. cellulitis, sepsis, endocarditis, overdose, physical traumas) and offer little to no evidence based treatment for substance use disorder. Supporting access to comprehensive addictions medicine services and resources is a growing need in our community and advocating for these resources raises many ethical questions.
Ethics affects us all. Anyone struggling with an ethics question can contact the Bioethicist for support or access decision-making resources on the intranet.
Bioethicist: Michelle Allain – allainm@tbh.net, Ext. 6538