Meeting of the Rotary Club of Burlington Central 

20th of April 2017 

President: Mike Molloy.

The format today was a little different as there was a matching game that was set up by the Master at Arms to ensure that people sat at different tables. This was lively and fun and indeed caused better mixing than usual.

Pres Mike Molloy played a video clip from the archives of Rotary that praise the benefits of Rotary in the world. One quote from this was “You don't have to be a Prime Minister to lead your country”; as Mike said “you have the capacity to make change. Look beyond your borders to get engaged.”

At the forthcoming Atlanta Rotary International meeting there will be an opportunity to share any experiences of the Free Reading Project; prospective attendees are encouraged to do that.

There has been much discussion about Canada 150 and how the four clubs might become involved. There are several events coming up and our club meets to decide whether to partner with the other three clubs or to go solo. Ideas to this end are requested please.

Tomorrow Mike Molloy will be meeting with Eric Vanderwal, today's speaker, and with the foundation to discuss the Rotary signage and naming for the hospital. He is keen for the Rotary Wheel to be displayed prominently in the new hospital block as this is the most recognisable Rotary sign.

Today's guests were introduced: Dale Bowskill,  a Guest of Leslie Allison. Terry Hepburn from the North club; Wiktor our exchange student.

Wiktor gave his presentation and was thankful for the multiple invitations that he received of hospitality over the Easter weekend.

Our Sargeant at Arms Rod Collard was proud to tell us that for the Lakeside à la Carte this year there will be, for the first time, an out of province vendor coming from Manitoba.

Rod had a quiz relating to local and national general knowledge and a number of gifts were handed out to the highest scorers.

Lawrence Leung introduced today’s speaker Eric Vanderwal who has been CEO of the Joseph Brant Hospital since 2009. We were reminded that the Rotary Club of Burlington Central the first to pledge support to the new build at the Joseph Brant with a pledge of $300,000. This was added to by the other clubs to a total of $1 million over five years.

Eric told us of some of the initiatives taken at the Joseph Brant. Over the past several years there has been continuous improvement of care where the acronym CARE spelling out: Compassion, Accountability, Respect, and Excellence.

A philosophy that has been championed in the past and highly successfully by Toyota known as the LEAN philosophy was to drive continuous improvement changing the culture of the way the hospital works such that one never stands still, or rests on one's laurels. Definition of values, elimination of waste, development of mutual respect for all people working within the organisation, and for the patients, and continued improvement are the bywords. A movement away from silos within the establishment and overly directive management, a culture of blame, and a tendency to focus inward have been done away with. A focus on measurement of progress has been developed as central towards moving forward.

Eric described several of the tools used by the LEAN philosophy. These included carving out daily a block of time during which members of the organisation can get together with the management team to present ideas and refine them. This is known as Gemba time, a Japanese concept. Idea Boards are to be found around the departments for people to but up their ideas and for them to be refined and to foster interaction.

An example of a discussion had during Gemba time was the identification of excessive numbers of intravenous attempts on patients in the intensive care unit. Discussion led to changing of the equipment used, an expensive prospect but ultimately of greater value to the patients and caregivers reducing the number of IV starts and a reduction by 90 hours of professional time by doing this.

The idea boards led to improvement in the time taken to process Newborn Screening, a daily process whereby a blood spot is sent to a central laboratory in Ottawa on every newborn to identify congenital diseases. The improvements that came from this led to an improvement of 55% in efficiency with outperformance of the provincial average. 

The other tool known as Kaizen has led to continuous improvement within departments and as a result patient flow in the emergency room has improved to better than target. In diagnostic imaging, it was found that 66% of the steps to process a patient were thought to be wasteful and as a result elimination of many steps reduced waste and improve the experience for the patients.

A pharmacy stocking plan was changed radically leading to the saving of a two thirds of a full-time equivalent salary.

As a result of these efforts, everybody is better interrelated and everybody has a voice. Morale has improved as a result. Patients and their loved ones are noticing the improvements. There has been a reduction in complaints in the emergency department.

Key changes to culture by changing strategies has occurred through a grassroots development and is no longer top-down. Staff are being recognised for their efforts.

Cycle known as PDSA, Plan Do Study Act has led to a continuous cycle of improvement. Standardisation of work is being done in order to maintain the progress achieved.

With respect to the new build, on August 20 the emergency room will be relocated to the brand new Lakeside entrance with multi story parking immediately adjacent and connection between the parking building and the tower by a covered walkway. The address will be new; phone number will not change. All patients will be moved in one day! approximately 150, coordinated by a professional organisation with an impressive track record.

The major construction has all but finished. There will be a new cafeteria, a new lobby. The operating rooms have gone from 7 1/2 small and terribly outdated, to 10 with all the latest technology and a larger footprint. The project is on time, on budget. Currently systems are being tested and in particular computer and technology is being worked through. High-tech RFID tracking of equipment will enable easier access by departments to valuable equipment.  It's to be a "smart building" compared to the "not smart" 1961 building that we've been working in up until now. The effective square footage has gone up by 400,000 effectively doubling the plan.  

Eric was thanked for his talk and presented with a certificate of appreciation. 

The meeting was adjourned at 8:45 a clear indication of how much interest there was in Eric’s subject, very dear to the hearts of our club.

Anthony Ford-Jones