Quality Assurance and Decision Support
Our main goal is to provide high-quality, innovative, and individualized care, which meets best practice standards and reflects our awareness of cultural safety. At SLMHC, Decision Support and Quality Improvement Plan (QIP) is responsible for the data management and analysis, providing organizational-wide operational support to the clinical and non-clinical departments as needed. SLMHC is delivering a high level of care in new and existing services, through the creation and tracking of appropriate metrics.
Decision Support and QIP supports the leadership and committees in developing, maintaining the databases of reports, and tracking performance indicators in alignment with SLMHC’s strategic direction. Decision Support and QIP works collaboratively, with the healthcare teams, to identify and communicate the performance improvement opportunities. Additionally, the Decision Support Analyst is responsible to provide the information and analysis of data to help determine appropriate targets and action plans, to address issues and improve the data utilization/management.
Furthermore, we perform comparative data analysis (e.g., with the LHIN or regional data and with the internal data) to determine similarities, differences, and trends in SLMHC service needs. And through Ad hoc analysis to support the special projects, and liaising with key stakeholders, to fully define analytical requirements, are also under the scope of Decision Support and QIP.
System-wide quality improvement is the vision that the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Long-Term Care provide for all health care sectors, using the Quality Improvement Plan (QIP) as an enabler to support this goal. After the approval of our Board, the SLMHC QIP reports are submitted to the Ministry annually.
Quality Improvement Plan (QIP)
The importance of quality was underscored in 2010 with the passing of Ontario’s Excellent Care for All Act (ECFAA), legislation that puts Ontario patients first by strengthening focus and accountability to deliver high-quality care. The ECFFA helps define quality for the health care sector and ensures health care organizations in Ontario make information on our commitment to the quality publicly available.
Complying with ECFAA requires that SLMHC picks quality improvement areas, sets measurable targets, outlines the initiatives on which we plan to focus, and have this information available to the public as a Quality Improvement Plan (QIP) as we implement the transparency and accountability that ECFAA brings to health care.
At SLMHC, according to the Excellent Care for All Act 2010 (ECFAA) and other accountability agreements that mandate all hospitals comply with strict guidelines and reporting requirements relating to evidence-based delivery of health care, we select our quality improvement areas, set measurable targets and actions, outline the initiatives on which we plan to focus to meet our quality improvement goals.
Our Quality Improvement Plan (QIP) is carried out throughout the year and as a team. We implement the changes in our QIP and track the course of our improvement. We then post our annual QIP results, as we implement the transparency and accountability that ECFAA brings to health care.
Quality Improvement Plan (QIP) components:
- QIP Narrative: SLMHC provides a brief overview of our quality improvement work
- QIP Progress Report: SLMHC outlines our performance from our previous year, including our successes and challenges
- QIP Work Plan: SLMHC details our measurable targets on all our indicators outlining the quality issues and describes our planned actions to achieve our targets to meet our quality improvement goals, which are recommended by the HQO (Health Quality Ontario)
We welcome the transparency and accountability that ECFAA brings to health care and invite you to visit these reference links for more information.
About the Excellent Care for All Act (ECFFA, 2010)
Excellent Care for All Act, 2010
For further information or to provide any input to our QIP, please contact:
Shanthive Asokan, CCRA, M.Phil, M.Sc.
Quality Assurance and Decision Support Lead
Phone: (807) 737-3030 Ext. 4763
Fax: (807) 737-6246
Email: sasokan@slmhc.on.ca