You are invited to a live webinar hosted by SeamlessMD in partnership with Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre (TBRHSC), on Tuesday September 21st @ 1:00 pm, where we will be sharing the steps taken to reduce surgical backlog and Emergency Department (ED) visits.

During the 50-min session, you will learn:

• How TBRHSC and our Regional Partners increased same-day (vs. inpatient) surgeries, while dramatically ED visits & Readmissions.
• How TBRHSC and our Regional Partners implemented their successful Surgical Remote Monitoring program.
• How TBRHSC’s care team spends less than 1 hour per week monitoring patients with the help of “smart alerts & notifications” and more.
• The TBRHSC team including Caroline Fanti, Director of Surgical Services, and Skylar Christian, NP for Remote Patient Monitoring, will also be available for an extensive Q&A, so please bring your questions!

To register for this free and informative webinar, visit https://seamless.md/tbrhsc-webinar-sign-up

Today is World Patient Safety Day and our Hospital is joining the pledge to take action to reduce patient harm in a health care setting.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared September 17th as World Patient Safety Day. Globally, 134 million adverse events contribute to 2.6 million deaths each year due to unsafe care. At 28,000 deaths per year in Canada, patient harm ranks third in mortality after cancer and heart disease.

World Patient Safety Day helps to raise awareness of the need to formulate policies, create a safe work culture, and provide care where the safety of patients is a priority. Each year, a new theme is selected to shed light on a priority patient safety area where action is needed to reduce avoidable harm in health care and achieve universal health coverage.

Considering the significant burden of harm women and newborns are exposed to due to unsafe care, this year’s World Patient Safety Day is dedicated to the need to prioritize and address safety in maternal and newborn care, particularly around the time of childbirth, when most harm occurs.

Like all departments at our Hospital, the Labour and Delivery team is committed to patient safety. Dr. Laura Power, Chief of Obstetrics and Gynecology at our Hospital, explained how Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre is a hub for maternity and infant care for Northwestern Ontario. “We are committed to safe perinatal care,” stated Dr. Power. “Parents have the choice of care providers, including Obstetricians, Family Physicians, Midwives, and Indigenous midwives. Pediatricians also provide more intensive services for newborns in need of extra care. We work as a team to make our Hospital a safe place for childbirth. In addition, our Hospital provides support to several rural communities that provide maternity and perinatal care so that parents can remain as close to home as possible.”

Thank you to Dr. Power, Dr. Jumah (Obstetrician Gynecologist), Linda, Trisha and Alli (Registered Nurses), in addition to all the Women and Children’s services for making patient safety a priority.

Thank you to all Hospital staff who have submitted their completed COVID-19 declaration forms. Those that qualify for at-home rapid antigen testing are required to pick up their antigen testing kit this week (September 13-17) from Occupational Health & Safety between 0730 – 1730hrs, Monday to Friday.

Please note that staff who do not pick up and complete their at-home test this Wednesday or Sunday will be considered non-compliant. Currently, the requirement to complete at-home rapid antigen testing once a week (Wednesday or Sunday) is applicable while our Hospital’s internal pandemic response is Green or Yellow. The frequency of required testing will change if the Hospital’s internal pandemic response changes to Orange or Red. More information will be shared soon.

The Informatics team has added 7 additional workshops. See the attached schedule for more details.

Neonatal Nurses Week (September 13-19) provides an opportunity to celebrate the hard work and dedication of neonatal nurses. The contributions of these health care heroes to the tiniest patients make a difference that lasts a lifetime for neonates and their families.

Following the challenges for health care workers in 2020 related to the global pandemic, the World Health Organization extended the ‘Year of the Nurse’ celebration for a second year. Nurses all over the world continue working tirelessly to save the most fragile neonatal lives, work closely with patient families, and advocate for the neonatal nursing profession.

Pictured above (L-R) are NICU nurses in our Hospital: Shaelyn Leblanc, Ursula Cote, Trisha Smith, Michelle Lauzon, and Brianna Shields-Anderson.

Please join us in thanking our NICU nurses for their tremendous contributions to patient and family centred care.

World Patient Safety Day – established by the World Health Assembly in 2019 – is observed annually on September 17th.

Objectives of the day are to:

• enhance global understanding of patient safety
• increase public engagement in health care safety
• promote global action to prevent and reduce avoidable harm in health care

The Day brings together patients, families, caregivers, communities, health workers, health care leaders and policy-makers to show their commitment to patient safety.

This year’s theme is safety in maternal and newborn care, particularly around the time of childbirth, when most harm occurs.

Did you know that worldwide:

• Approximately 810 women die every day from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth.
• Around 6,700 newborns die every day, amounting to 47% of all under-5 deaths.
• About 2 million babies are stillborn every year, with over 40% occurring during labour (WHO, 2021).

CALL TO ACTION: Advocate best practices at the point of care to prevent avoidable risks and harm to all women and newborns during childbirth.

For more info, visit https://bit.ly/WorldPatientSafetyDay2021

This event is being hosted by the Thunder Bay Drug Strategy and Thunder Bay Drug Awareness Committee.

To view the event virtually, visit https://bit.ly/rockinrecovery2021

Most of us don’t understand what vascular surgery involves or how vitally important it is to health care. “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” – that’s an easy concept. But vascular surgery? What does that even mean?

Here’s one example of how important it is. The amputation rate in Northwestern Ontario was three times higher than the rest of the province. Three times! There are different reasons for amputation, but one of them is poor circulation due to diabetes and other health conditions. Lack of blood flow slowly kills the tissue in the limb, most commonly the leg. Eventually, the leg simply dies. The tragedy is, this type of amputation is often preventable thanks to the help of – you guessed it – vascular surgeons.

Vascular surgeons can help improve circulation in a variety of ways and avoid amputation. But with these services a day’s drive or more away from Thunder Bay, our patients simply didn’t have access to them. Some patients when given the choice to travel for health services chose amputation instead to avoid the costs, stress, and difficulties of leaving home for care.

That’s a choice no one should ever have to make.

Thankfully, that is changing. The Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre now has a full staff of three vascular surgeons: Dr. Mary MacDonald, Dr. Elrasheed Osman, and Dr. Matthew Ingves, who was born and raised in Thunder Bay. They have helped improve healthcare in our region in so many other ways, too.

Take emergency endovascular aneurysm repair or EVAR, for example. This minimally invasive procedure fixes an abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) or bulging of the aorta, the body’s largest blood vessel. Sometimes the aorta can bulge so far that it ruptures, leading to internal bleeding and a high risk of death.

Traditionally, surgeons would make a large incision in the abdomen to repair it. But EVAR avoids all that. Doctors can reach the site of the aneurysm by following the blood vessels up through a small incision in each leg. Then, they place a stent to strengthen the weak spot in the aorta, much like angioplasty.

The repair is basically the same whether you use EVAR or traditional surgery, but EVAR is much less traumatic for the patient. It also leads to a shorter recovery time, less pain, less risk of infection, and less risk of many other side effects.

Trauma is another area where vascular surgeons really help. Car accidents, crushing injuries, power tool mishaps, and other accidents that result in severed arteries can cause internal bleeding and loss of blood circulation. Previously, general surgeons in our Emergency Department would repair what they could and send the patient on to a vascular surgeon in southern Ontario.

But every second counts in these situations, and travelling long distances with severe injuries adds to the risks. Thankfully, our patients can now get the vascular surgery they need faster, safer, and without the need for travel.

These are just a few of the ways vascular surgeons help patients every day. Of course, that’s the goal of the whole Cardiovascular Surgical (CVS) program and the Our Hearts at Home Cardiovascular Campaign: to provide better and faster access to the cardiovascular surgical services we need, right here in Thunder Bay.

We all deserve closer-to-home care. Thanks to the Our Hearts at Home Cardiovascular Campaign, we will build on the successes of vascular surgery to create a full CVS program including cardiac surgery. You can help! Please give at healthsciencesfoundation.ca/donatenow or call our Donation Centre at (807) 345-4673.