THUNDER BAY – Gail Brescia appreciates the regional hospital’s focus on patient and family centred care.
The 53-year-old was diagnosed with breast cancer in January and underwent extensive surgery just a month later.
During the following months, as she has received nearly all of her chemotherapy treatments, Brescia has gotten a firsthand look at how the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre emphasizes patient care.
“The nurses are fantastic at getting you anything you need, making sure the care is going well as well as the chemotherapy drugs are being administered in an appropriate way,” she said.
“There is a family counselling centre, dietetic assistance that’s here and everything to keep you well-rounded and healthy during treatment at the hospital.”
It has been six years since the hospital first adopted its commitment to patient and family centred care, a commitment that was reaffirmed on Friday.
Bill McCready, interim president and CEO of the hospital, said it is a step forward for the facility.
“For years medicine and hospitals have looked after patients. We’ve done things for them and sometimes things to them. Patient and family centred care is doing things with them,” he said.
“It’s a total change in our approach to how we plan our care, give our care and our total philosophy. It’s a very important change in how we do business and how we care with and for our patients.”
The facility has been recognized by Accreditation Canada as the only hospital in the country designated with a leading practice award in patient and family centred care.
“We’re very proud of that. I think we’re ahead of the curve. Other hospitals come to us to see how we do things,” McCready said.
“Everybody recognizes this is the modern way and how we’re going to make health care better and safer.”
Keith Taylor, co-chair of the Patient Family Advisory Council, said patient family advisors take on many roles in the management of the hospital by sitting on a number of committees as well as senior management.
The approach has led to a number of benefits throughout the organization.
“When you involve patients in your business the costs go down,” Taylor said. “Studies show when we involve patient family advisors we have actually made cost savings. It’s a win-win.”
It also results in direct improvements for patients.
“We’ve changed our pediatrics operating room,” Taylor said. “We were average and put one of our youngest patient family advisors on a team with the surgeons, assistants and nurses and changed the whole way we do pediatric operations. We went from average to the best in Ontario.”
