Osler receives prestigious national recognition for excellence in patient safety

Today, William Osler Health System (Osler) was nationally recognized by the Canadian College of Health Leaders (CCHL) for its unwavering commitment to safe, quality care as the recipient of the prestigious 2022 Excellence in Patient Safety Award sponsored by BD Canada.

At Osler, patient safety is at the heart of everything we do. In 2019, Osler embarked on a transformational journey to refresh its approach to patient safety incident management and this award recognizes the significant positive outcomes that Osler has achieved. Since implementing its refreshed Patient Safety Incident Management Framework, Osler has seen a number of significant improvements including increases in patient safety incident reporting, participation of staff and physicians attending quality of care reviews, and historically underreported incidents. All of these improvements have also led to more opportunities for Osler’s clinical teams to learn from incidents to further improve patient safety.

“At Osler, a quality excellence mindset guides us in everything we do, driving us to continuously pursue quality improvements that minimizes risk and prevents adverse outcomes and harm,” said Tiziana Rivera, Vice President, Quality and Chief Nursing Executive, William Osler Health System. “This award is a testament to the commitment of Osler’s staff, physicians, leaders, volunteers, patients, families and members of Osler’s Patient and Family Advisory Council, who informed the creation of the framework and who make a difference every day by actively putting patient safety first.”

In keeping with Osler’s five-year Strategic Plan and Patient Safety Plan, the new framework adopts a fair, non-punitive and inclusive approach to patient safety incident management - the hallmarks of a ‘just culture’ where patient safety and quality are a priority. It improves how people report, respond to, and learn from patient safety incidents.

Over the last few years, Osler has adopted sophisticated technologies to simplify the patient safety incident reporting process for staff and physicians, and to share real-time performance metrics from the boardroom to the department level. These metric help to inform more targeted education, tools and resources which support staff and physician engagement. Patients and families have been welcomed at clinical unit huddles to discuss patient safety with teams, to ask questions and offer solutions, and remain a vital voice throughout the patient safety incident management process.

On June 16, 2022, Osler will be presented with the 2022 Excellence in Patient Safety Award during CCHL’s virtual Honouring Health Leadership event. Osler’s partners, donors and members of the community are invited to join the hospital during this virtual event.