Ensuring Patient Safety In Ontario’s Hospitals
*From the Editor: My expeirences at hospitals has been mixed but one of my most ongoing issues locally was the refusal by some nurses to wear gloves when putting in my IV shunts for treatments (even when accessing the port-a-cath I once had there were refusals to set up the sterile field I had been told was a must when the port-a-cath had been originally put in) This never happened when I was at other hospitals in Northern Ontario. I wonder if rules regarding things like the use of gloves may be more standardized in Ontario hospitals going forward.
McGuinty Government Works With Hospitals To Prevent Infections
Ontario is reminding hospitals to take advantage of all the resources available to help them combat hospital-acquired infections.
Infections that start in hospitals, like C. Difficile, are an unwelcome reality in modern health care settings around the world. The McGuinty government has put in place many steps to keep patient safety at the forefront, including:
- Developing best practices on infection prevention through collaboration with nationally-renowned infection control experts.
- Creating 14 Regional Infection Control Networks (RICNs) across the province to promote infection prevention and control policies and monitoring.
- Funding an additional166 infection prevention and control practitioners (ICPs) in hospitals. ICPs have specialized training and expertise in infection prevention and control. Ontario has the best ratio of ICPs to hospital beds of any jurisdiction in North America.
- Developing a comprehensive education program on infection prevention and control for professionals in hospital settings to ensure patient safety.
- Putting in place a comprehensive hand hygiene program in hospitals across the province – targeted at health care providers, patients and visitors.
In addition to these measures, Ontario hospitals publicly report on nine patient safety indicators – more than any other province.
QUICK FACTS
- Patient safety indicator results are posted on hospital websites and the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care’s public website.
