The Professional Services Building at the North Hastings Health Centre in Bancroft hosted the 2016 Quinte Health Care Annual General Meeting, on June 28, 2016. (Photo: David Foot/Quinte News)
Despite facing an $11.5 million funding shortfall, Quinte Health Care was able to finish 2015/16 fiscal year with a small surplus.
The extra funds of about $291,000 won’t get much done in the medical world, but officials say it will allow them to put more focus back on patient care and less on the books.
QHC CEO Mary Clare Egberts tells Quinte News, that was just one of a number of accomplishments by staff over the last fiscal year.
Among the other high points, QHC experienced a break in bed capacity issues during May and June of this year, partly due to new models of care working out in the community.
The four hospitals together also hold the lowest MRI wait times in Ontario.
Improvement efforts gaining momentum
Officials at Quinte Health Care say the corporation’s two-year improvement plan is coming along nicely.
The program called “Grassroots Transformation” has each department looking at ways to become more efficient and improve patient care.
Chief of Staff Dr. Dick Zoutmann tells Quinte News, one recent accomplishment is a new organizational system for emergency department exam rooms, starting in Belleville.
Dr.Zoutmann says the process involved about 30 staff members including nurses, maintenance staff, doctors and more, but will make a huge difference.
He says the next step will be rolling out a similar re-organization of the Intensive Care Unit.
Local policy coming together on doctor assisted death
The Chief of Staff with Quinte Health Care says developing a policy on doctor assisted dying will be a “moving target”, especially due to court challenges.
But Dr. Dick Zoutmann does say he has enough information on the law to start a framework for that local policy.
Dr. Zoutmann tells Quinte News they’ll be working with a number of outside community agencies to put a policy together and hope to have it ready in the next few weeks.
Right now, a 25 year-old BC woman has filed a constitutional challenge of the bill, because at this point it only allows patients who are close-to-death to have a doctor help end their lives.
