Newfoundland hospital paves the way
Thursday October 25, 2007 -- Jason Thompson
Amanda Thompson says the work the Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI) team at Notre Dame Bay Memorial Health Centre has done implementing the Safer Healthcare Now (SHN) intervention has paved the way for other organizations in central Newfoundland.

Thompson is the regional quality improvement co-ordinator for Central Regional Integrated Health Authority (RIHA), or Central Health as it is called. Central Health is a Healthcare Insurance Reciprocal of Canada (HIROC) subscriber.

Notre Dame Bay Memorial Health Centre, located in the town of Twillingate on an island off the northern shores of Newfoundland called New World Island, is the first organization in the Central Health region to implement the AMI initiative.

“We started off in Twillingate just trying to test the waters and see how this initiative would work in our region,” Thompson says. “It was almost like it was flawless, everything just fell into place and everybody was very co-operative and enthusiastic about this initiative so people took on their roles and just ran with it.”

Thompson says patient safety with respect to AMI has been increased. Notre Dame Bay Memorial Health Centre is currently at 100 per cent compliance with AMI bundles.

Armed with best practices from the hospital in Twillingate, Thompson says the AMI intervention is now being spread to other organizations. There are 27 facilities in the Central Health region with some level of emergency care services. The AMI bundle will be introduced in some form to all 27 facilities.

“So far it’s been very positive. (The Hugh Thomey Health Care Centre in) Botwood was very enthusiastic about taking on that roll as well,” Thompson says.

At the outset, Thompson figured it would take a couple of months just to gather baseline data and host staff education sessions. Much to her surprise, the AMI initiative began April 18, 2007 and was up and running in compliance with SHN standards within six weeks.

“The fact that we did it quickly is a good thing because it keeps momentum going. You don’t get a chance to lose sight of it because it’s very much at the fore-front,” Thompson says. “The fact that we over-publicized this bundle also gave compliance because it wasn’t a little trickle of information — everybody knew when they came to the hospital what was going on.”

Not only have the AMI pioneers at Notre Dame Bay Memorial Health Centre laid the foundation for other organizations, their experience is also going to be used to look beyond the intervention.

“Right now Central Health does not have a cardiac rehab program, we have bits and pieces of it . . . but it’s certainly not spread throughout,” Thompson says. “That’s one thing, in conjunction with the team in Twillingate that we’re working on trying to go beyond. While it isn’t a direct measure of SHN, it would be beneficial to our patients so we want to try and get that together.”

For more information on AMI or SHN, visit www.saferhealthcarenow.ca.