RVH has successfully obtained Quality Nursing Environment funding from The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care to develop new initiatives that are led by frontline nurses.

The funding runs from January until the end of March, and will focus on imple-menting tools and generating awareness related to hospital-wide policies focusing on patient safety. The purpose is to sup-port the engagement and retention of our wonderful care providers and recognize the valuable contributions of these nurses in the health care system.

Chris Ferguson, Vice-President of Patient Services at RVH, explains that the funds for this project will be allocated to replacement of frontline nurses so they can develop a plan and implement the project, which involves tools and education about the six domains of patient safety from the Canadian Patient Safety Institute.

At RVH, staff are concentrating on three of those six domains: 1. Contributing to a Culture of Safety: Applying core patient safety, knowledge and skill, and attributes to everyday work; 2. Communicating Effectively Through Patient Safety: Promoting patient safety through effective health

care communication by education of staff on various safety tools; and 3. Working in Teams for Patient Safety: Working within a team to optimize both patient safety and quality of care.

The project leads have attended a two-day course to become the organizational patient safety champions and they will be responsible to men-tor the other nurses throughout the hos-pital until the end of the month.

Ferguson says that although the funding is tar-geted to nursing, the nurses involved will educate all hos-pital departments providing patient care and all levels of the organization, including senior management.

“Patient safety is a core value at RVH,” states registered nurse Charlene Hanniman, one

of the two experienced nurses who attended the Patient Safety Education Program (PSEP) training in Kingston in early January. The PSEP emphasizes an interprofessional team approach and peer-to-peer education.

Hanniman and colleague Cindy Walker, the project leaders, have been sharing the information gathered from the course with their fellow nursing staff and pre-sented further learning opportunities to all employees of RVH at an Educational Skills Fair at RVH on February 21.

Jessica Gilbert, RVH’s Clinical Nurse Manager of the Acute Care Program, men-tions that the theme for the day was patient safety. “We covered a variety of issues in order to raise staff awareness regarding safety initiatives in which RVH is currently invested.”

Some of the topics were simply review for some of the care team, she adds, but any opportunity to practise the steps to follow for routine tasks—such as filling out forms or hand hygiene—contributes to the overall safety of our patients. Competency-based and equipment-based stations were also included for staff participation.

“There is a patient safety aspect in every job description in the hospital—it involves all staff,” notes Hanniman.

Those who took part could refresh skills, such as patient lifts and medication administra-tion, or review the surgical safety checklist.

Hanniman says they will host other safety events, demonstrations and presenta-tions throughout the hospital until the end of March.

The team plans to measure the success of this initiative at its conclusion.

Visit us online at www.renfrewhosp.com and at www.rvhrounds.com

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RVH frontline nurses plan educational activities for all staff related to patient safety.