Coming down the home stretch . . .
Our guests from Accreditation Canada completed their final tracers this morning and will provide us with an initial debrief highlighting key areas of strength and opportunities for improvement tomorrow at 11 am.
About the visit
The Surveyors arrived in Richmond on Monday November 25th, and were provided with background information on VCH and the Richmond Community of Care. This allowed them to set the stage for the rest of their site visit. Surveyors were impressed with the thorough orientation provided by our Senior Leadership Team, and expressed their gratitude to the leaders who spent time with them, welcoming and introducing them to our sites and services.
Over the past two and a half days surveyors have been conducting tracers in our clinical areas. In each of these areas, the surveyors had the opportunity to observe team huddles or rounds, and were impressed with the teamwork they saw. They remarked on the high level of physician engagement, and how well-prepared and eager everyone was to show them the work that they do every day. Staff also spoke positively of their interactions with the surveyors, noting that they felt very much at ease with our guests.
Teams were proud to showcase a number of improvements, such as medication reconciliation, the Four Cornerstones of Infection Control, Lean and Releasing Time to Care, involvement of Community Engagement, and the many examples of ongoing work to strengthen our transitions of care, to name a few.
Surveyors validated the areas of ongoing improvement that Richmond identified, such as how staff receive feedback and recognition from their leaders about their performance (supported by the People First survey results), and the physical environment limitations to be addressed by the Facilities Master Plan.
Debrief session and next steps
On Friday morning, surveyors will provide an initial debrief highlighting key areas of strength and opportunities for improvement observed across Richmond. The debrief will not provide a specific program-by-program review but will focus on the areas of quality, risk management, ethics and patient safety as organization-wide themes. At the end of the debrief session, surveyors will leave with us a first draft of the site visit report that will include ratings for all criteria, as well as surveyors’ comments on specific improvement opportunities observed for each unmet criterion.
Friday’s general debrief session will take place from 11 am to noon in the Auditorium at Richmond Hospital. It is open to all staff, physicians, volunteers and contracted staff, and I encourage everyone who can attend to join us. To minimize the disruption for everyone, however, I ask that only those who are able to stay for the entire presentation join us. We will also share the debrief highlights in an email Friday afternoon and will continue to keep you informed through our VCH News-Richmond newsletter and various staff meetings over the coming weeks and months.
The final draft of the report, along with the official letter from Accreditation Canada with the forecasted accreditation decision is expected a few weeks later. We will then have an additional five months to provide status updates on any high-priority unmet criteria. The final accreditation decision will be awarded in June 2014.
If you have any questions about the Accreditation process, please talk to your supervisor, manager or director, or contact Serena Bertoli-Haley, VCH Accreditation Leader (604.785.2669) or Michael McAuley, Clinical Quality & Patient Safety Officer (604.278.9711 Ext. 4204). You can also check out the Accreditation Richmond 2013 page on VCH Connect.