A total of 23 members signed into the zoom meeting including 4 guests (Jenny McNally, Mary McPherso, and Dr. Duncan Rosario from OHF/ OTMH, plus potential new member: Amy Yokoyama).
Announcement:
Our annual Oakville golf tournament will be held at Pipers Heath again, in September
We require 2 people to be spokespersons for our Car Lottery. Anyone willing can reach out to Viv Naidoo or Dave Peters.
Speaker Series is lined up for April 5th, and funds raised will be donated to OHF, for the benefit of OTMH
Board is meeting next week - please tell Michael if you have anything for the board’s attention
Happy Bucks:
Frank, Amin, David, George Vincent were all happy!
Fines:
Who is not in the province of Ontario right now?
Who did not walk for 15 minutes today?
How many medals do we have in the Olympics at present?
What was historic about one of the medals that we received?
Meeting:
Frank Morewood introduced the Mary McPherson
Mary McPherson (CEO of OHF):
Mary mentioned that the Oakville Hospital Foundation is separate from the hospital. RCO was hosted at the hospital in the past.
The Foundation raises funds for equipment and capital for the hospital. The Foundation only donates to the hospital. Interesting to note that government does not purchase equipment generally for hospitals.
The hospital was built larger than initially required i.e. built for growth. The hospital needs to renew equipment every 7 years or so.
Equipment was purchased to provide cancer care for Oakville residents, so that people can receive treatment closer to home.
The hospital is conducting a great number of surgeries at present, but needs to ramp up to build out more capacity for surgeries to cater for increased growth.
Mary McPherson introduces Dr. Duncan Rosario, Chief of Surgery.
Dr. Rosario:
In the past, Oakville did not have a good track record for infections derived from surgeries. Action and research were undertaken to assess good practices around the world.
Improvements were implemented, and improvements were so notable, the hospital received a prestigious award.
Oakville Hospital was one of the pioneering hospitals in reducing opioid use. Reduced the prescribing of narcotics by 80%.
Was the first hospital in Canada to trial use of guided medication to help alleviate pain post-surgery. This is now done for all patients.
Opened 3 operating rooms in 3 years, and hired staff to support. Introduced a virtual care programme as well. Hospital is looking for additional operating rooms and facilities.
Hospital brought in various renowned speakers from around the world to improve on knowledge base and service offerings.
Hospital is looking to provide high quality, compassionate surgical care.
Dr. Rosario and his daughter developed artificial intelligence to optimize operating room efficiency by up to 20%. This will now be presented to rest of Canada for a hopeful adoption.
With the backlog of covid induced delays, it would take 4-5 years to catch up with the backlog.
Oakville Hospital planning to extend operational hours to Saturday as well to cater for the backlog.
Covid has been challenging for our front-line staff.
Nurses and other helpers have been put through additional training to qualify them as operating nurses now.
Oakville has 11 operating rooms, more than some hospitals in downtown Toronto. We have 60 surgeons on staff as well. Oakville handles quite a large volume of the surgeries in Ontario.
The weakest link in alleviating the backlog in surgeries is the conservative approach to solutions and a lack of innovation. We are fearful of moving digitally, privacy issues etc. We need to take risks and change the way we do things. We need to be innovative in our approach. A case in point in virtual consultations. Prior to Covid, virtual consultation made up less than 1% of total base. Now, it is closer to 95%. Although this is too high a number, it does indicate that a change in systems can be used to treat patients.
Mary thanked Dr. Rosario for his speech and to Rotary for the long-standing partnership Rotary has had with the Foundation.
Michael Conway thanked both speakers, and closed the meeting at 8:01pm
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