January, 2013

Welcome to Cambridge Memorial Hospital's (CMH) website. We appreciate the opportunity to provide you with information about our hospital. Our vision is to provide the residents of Cambridge and North Dumfries with exceptional, high quality and safe patient care by our exceptional staff and physicians.

Since our last report in July, 2012, a lot has happened that will fundamentally change the way health care is funded. The government has introduced a new funding model which rewards the delivery of high quality care at a lower cost. As stewards of taxpayer dollars, we see this as an opportunity to improve our hospital for the better. In becoming efficient and nimble, we will be able to adapt to the many changes that will come to health care over the next few years. This is not new for us and we are fortunate to have a roadmap, in the form of a Strategic Plan, that keeps us focused on what is important: an ‘unparalleled focus on quality', ‘strength through people', and ‘driving value and affordability'.

Like all other hospitals in Ontario, we initiated an organization-wide survey measuring our staff and physicians' engagement with our organization. Addressing gaps that prohibit people from fully enjoying a good work life reduce the pitfalls associated with a disengaged workforce, like higher turnover in staff and increased sick time. Over 25 facets of engagement were measured and we were pleased with the feedback. We were told by staff that we do very well on many things such as ‘co-worker cooperation', and ‘job control'. We were also shown the opportunities to improve the work life of those who work here. Some areas that were suggested include ‘impact of job on personal life' and ‘performance feedback'. Plans are underway to address potential issues at the departmental level and our hospital has made a commitment to resurvey all staff and physicians in two years to see how we improved.

Excitement for the new hospital is growing at CMH even though much of the work is behind the scenes and involves detailed planning. Many of our staff and physicians participated in work groups to help our architects develop sketch plans for construction. We also invited members of the community to inform them of our community's history so that the new hospital can reflect our rich heritage. We are working diligently and collaboratively with Infrastructure Ontario, Ministry of Health and Long Term Care and our community partners to ensure everything is done right. So far, we are on target and we can safely say that in 2014, we will go to tender and a shovel will hit the ground, somewhere on CMH property, to start this much anticipated project.

The wellbeing of our patients is a prime concern for us, but we also extend this this care to our community. This past November, a staff member proposed starting a food drive competition between departments in support of our local Cambridge Self Help Food Bank. Her goal was simply to get the word out hoping it would grow over the next few years. Little did she realize her colleagues' penchant for friendly competition mixed with their caring hearts would make this event take off like a rocket! This staff driven event raised over 7250 lbs. of food (3.5 tons) in a three week period. The irony in all this is that we were the ones placing an emergency call to the Food Bank to see if they could pick up some of the donations because we ran out of room to store the food.

At CMH, we are proud of demonstrating our accountabilities to our community. We believe that a transparent hospital is one you can trust. You can view the patient safety public reporting indicators we report to the public, such as the surgical safety checklist. You can see our commitment to patient safety by reading the latest Quality Improvement Plan for 2012-13. All of our accountabilities are grouped under four easy to navigate tabs called Quality , Finance , Wait Time and Policy.

If you want to learn more about us and our accomplishments over the past year, please read our Report to our Community or join up to read communit-E-cast newsletter. We welcome input from our community and would like to what you have to say about CMH. If you have a story to share or a concern you want answered, please send your message using the contact information below.

Regards,

Patrick Gaskin President and CEO

Contact information - Email: pgaskin@cmh.org