When Saving Time - Saves Lives

How North York General Hospital designed an

Electronic Skillset Tracking & Assessment Toolset
(eSTAT) to streamline a critical area of their
Emergency Pandemic Response Process
Table of Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Embracing the Extraordinary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Putting Time on Your Side . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Designing a Treatment Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Prepared to Care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Introduction

The diverse challenges today's healthcare facilities face seem to

grow on a daily basis. Consequently, the need for healthcare
providers to explore and create new and effective solutions to
these challenges is not only necessary, but also critical to ensuring
that the communities and people they serve receive the most
timely and expert care possible.

One of the ways our healthcare community can meet these evolving needs is through the design of cost
effective software information management solutions that can be seamlessly integrated into their existing
network. These programs present the opportunity for each healthcare facility to target and create very
specific solutions to meet the very unique operational needs of each healthcare facility.

With the outbreaks of the H1N1 flu reaching a pandemic level (according to the World Health Organization),
combined with the recent experience that the SARS virus presented, there is no time when having efficient
information management solutions already in place is more vital to healthcare organizations than it is now.

Just as each pandemic event presents divergent variables and challenges in different locations, the emergency
pandemic response process must also vary from one healthcare facility to another. What remains a common
factor within these situations is the need for practical solutions that enhance and further enable healthcare
workers to respond quickly and efficiently to meet their patients’ needs.

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Embracing the Extraordinary

In the world of those exceptional people who choose to be

caregivers, there are those who accept the ‘duty to care’ as a
part of their job - and those who embrace it. At North York
General Hospital their personnel’s main care giving mandate
couldn’t be more accurately reflected than in their facility maxim
of ‘Embracing Health’. It is what transforms a ‘duty’ to a ‘passion’
and that translates into one of the most important elements
found in outstanding care giving - compassion.

North York General Hospital (NYGH), which includes the IODE Children’s Centre, has been a local healthcare
leader and family partner to the community of north central Toronto and southern York Region since 1968.
Employing a model of care driven by the unique needs of their community and region, NYGH is home to
one of the largest and strongest networks of family physicians in Canada with patients ranging from newborns
to seniors. In addition to being a community teaching hospital, NYGH offers a broad range of interdependent
diagnostic and clinical health care services and is committed to providing progressive care that serves the
whole person through all stages of life.

NYGH’s four primary clinical areas of focus include Regional Maternal Newborn and Pediatric Care, Cancer
Care, Family and Community Medicine, and Care of the Elderly, all of which are supported by the hospitals
ten core programs (Emergency Services, Family & Community Medicine, Cancer Care, Child and Teen,
Genetics, Elder Care, Maternal Newborn, Medicine, Mental Health and Surgery). Additionally, NYGH is
affiliated with the University of Toronto and is a partner with Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in the
Peters-Boyd Academy. Over the course of the past 41 years, NYGH's community teaching hospital has
solidified its reputation as the training institution of choice for many resident physicians.

NYGH's commitment to patient safety has never been more evident than over the past few years than when
faced with the challenges both the SARS and the H1N1 flu virus pandemics presented. Consequently, this
experience has resulted in NYGH becoming a recognized industry leader in infection prevention and control.
As NYGH began reviewing their existing data gathering and distribution system to see if they could further
enhance their emergency pandemic response process, they sought not only a partner who possessed an
exceptional level of medical industry and technical expertise, but one who also possessed a demonstrated
commitment to performance excellence that matched their own.

NYGH found the perfect partner with Clarity.ca (Clarity). Clarity’s extraordinary industry, technical and client
service expertise provided NYGH with exactly the right balance of knowledge and experience they were
seeking for this important patient care driven project.

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Putting Time on Your Side

When confronting an emergency situation like a pandemic, by

necessity, everything and everyone in a healthcare facility becomes
a potential asset that can be used to help care for and reduce the
suffering of patients. This fact makes it very important to take a
step back during the planning process and remember to take
advantage of every asset you have available, not only including,
but especially the intangible ones - like ‘time’.

NYGH did just that when they conducted an in-depth review of their existing emergency pandemic response
process. There was no detail in their response plan that did not warrant a second look and that resulted in
identifying the need to fine-tune their initial response protocols. Careful review of these protocols indicated
that there had to be an even better and faster way to access key personnel in their facility that are the most
qualified in the specific areas of expertise needed to meet the needs of incoming patients affected by the
pandemic than they already had.

Partnering with Clarity was the key to discovering how to make their great response system - an outstanding one.
Clarity’s team of experts began with a detailed analysis process of every facet of NYGH's electronic workflow
and information gathering and distribution system. This analysis process helped clarify and clearly define the
specific areas of NYGH’s initial response protocols that could be improved without disruption to their existing
network or programs/applications already in place. This evaluation process led to the design and implemen-
tation of a new program toolset entitled eSTAT (Electronic Skillset Tracking & Assessment Toolset).

eSTAT is a multi-faceted toolset

designed to both record and report
the most up-to-date information on
the different skills and qualifications
of a healthcare facility's personnel.
Having this data available at the
touch of a button is critical to being
able to immediately identify and put
key personnel in place quickly to
prepare the healthcare facility for
and manage an emergency
pandemic event.

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Designing a Treatment Plan

As any healthcare professional will tell you, a truly effective

treatment plan can only be made after an exhaustive and
thorough examination has been conducted. This fact is also true
when analyzing information management and workflow
process systems. Following the front-end analysis process, Clarity
was able to make specific recommendations to NYGH that led to
the development of the eSTAT program application. This new
toolset is comprised of a series of individual components
designed to work together harmoniously to complement and
support NYGH’s overall emergency pandemic response process.

The foundation of eSTAT’s information gathering and processing rests with Clarity’s proprietary learning
management system entitled ‘LiMe’. LiMe provides the infrastructure and interface needed to enable non-
technical users the ability to easily create, manage, track, deliver and assess the broad range of data that
NYGH has to administer. LiMe also enables the export of the data reports to common formats for further
manipulation in other systems that the client is currently using/familiar with.

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Key Information Acquisition

One of the most important program features of

eSTAT is the ability to help NYGH’s leadership team
identify exactly ‘who can do what’ immediately in
response to an emergency pandemic situation.
Clarity met this requirement by designing a series of
questionnaires for the staff with a customized role
identification workflow feature. Role identification
clarifies what specific area of expertise the user has
(i.e., Respiratory Therapist, Registered Nurse, Social
Worker, etc.) with the workflow feature then
automatically displaying a questionnaire tailored
to the indicated specialized area of expertise.

The information and results input by the users are

then stored using an Active Directory login authentication
(matching up registered users with NYGH’s user
database for cross-referencing when required) and
the user is able to update their own data at any given
time. Once the core skill assessment information is
entered, NYGH has a detailed and up-to-date online
skill inventory available to resource quickly and easily
in times of need. This online skill inventory can be
managed and viewed in a number of ways, generating
only the data that is relevant and useful to NYGH’s
leadership team at any given time.

Since LiMe is a learning management system, Clarity

was able to seamlessly link the eSTAT application
with NYGH’s online and classroom training program
records. This provides NYGH’s management team
with current information of employees that are in the
process of upgrading their existing skillsets/certification
through online or classroom training programs, as
well as verifying course/program completion details.

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Obviously, a vital factor to the success of this program is ensuring that all of the skillset information is kept
current. To facilitate this requirement, Clarity created a mass email feature that sends an automated message
after a predetermined time period chosen by NYGH's leadership team (i.e., 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 months, etc.) to
personnel who have not updated their skills within that time period. As the user updates their data, eSTAT
is designed so that old data is automatically overwritten to ensure only the most current information is
displayed/stored. Clarity also designed a mass email option that can send a 'reminder to update your skills’
message to all staff members, rather than targeting only the individuals whose skills data have not been
updated during the specified notification time period.

Turning Data into Resources

Clarity’s extensive experience in the successful creation and implementation of customized information
management programs for the medical community has always led them to one undeniable conclusion
- facts and data have no real value to healthcare facilities unless they have a tangible, practical use.
This tenet is most apparent in the development and design phase of the reporting and information
distribution program components.

For Clarity, there couldn't be a more worthy cause than to ensure that all facets of the reporting and
information distribution processes were highly intuitive, flexible and accurate in order to meet NYGH’s
ultimate goal to serve the unique medical needs of their patients and families in an emergency pandemic
situation quickly and precisely to achieve the best possible recovery outcome.

Consequently, Clarity created dynamic reporting to enable NYGH’s administrative team to easily access and
analyze the available data based on a variety of predetermined/approved criteria, as well as providing them
with the ability to export it all to their reporting program of choice (Excel). Every aspect of this program
component was designed to facilitate the leadership team's ability to make the meaningful decisions they
had to in a challenging situation on a timely basis.

Complementing the dynamic reporting component, NYGH also had Clarity design a gap analysis tool to
monitor and track the overall effectiveness and results achieved by the incorporation of new eSTAT program
component within their facility's emergency pandemic response process. This feature provides a foundation
for NYGH to measure the success the new program as well as acting as a tool to flag potentially useful
criteria not currently included in the program that can be duly added in the future.

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Prepared to Care
Developing this new toolset came from NYGH’s dedication to enhance their existing emergency response
process in a way that does and will continue to be able to meet the challenges that any emergency
preparedness situation may present. With over 3,300 facility employees, they recognized the need to create
an application that could collect and assess specific skillset information of all of their staff in a permanent,
dynamic and easy-to-access manner. While the current flu pandemic certainly emphasized this need,
NYGH’s facility care giving mandate has always reflected their commitment to providing the very best in
healthcare services to their patients under any circumstances.

Leading NYGH’s impressive team of experts as Project Manager was Jamie Campbell (Director, Organizational
Development) with Mr. Kevork Guerguerian (Coordinator; Training, Organizational Development) providing
key input into the project-planning phase. Mohini Pershad (Professional Practice Leader; Nursing, Professional
Practice) provided invaluable advice on the survey design and questionnaire creation and in the analysis and
development of the workflow and process, with Gerry Dimnik (Director, Information Services) offering his
expertise in the areas of both contract development and technical specifications. Further complementing
NYGH’s diverse team of experts, were Martin Chevrier (Application Consultant, Information Services)
and Steve Bernard (Program Analyst) who partnered with Clarity’s technical team to meet AD integration
needs and ensure all IT and system requirements were met to enable a smooth transition to a live format.
Tying everything together was Ms. Cecilia Benasa (Administrative Assistant, Organizational Development)
who not only acted as the project coordinator but also helped perform critical initial program tests.

NYGH’s and Clarity’s team of experts successfully designed the eSTAT program to provide NYGH with the
long-term ability to develop skillset profiles of their highly trained staff to promptly meet the specific
requirements of any emergency care response event or situation. NYGH’s past experience with Clarity and
the successful installation and use of their proprietary LMS program (LiMe), assured them that this unique
project would prove to be just as responsive, concise and effective both technically and practically.

NYGH once again wasn’t disappointed as Clarity met every technical, client service, budgeting and timeline
project goal they had to facilitate a successful outcome. The user feedback to the NYGH leadership team has
been consistently peppered with the words “easy, quick and relevant”, which could be no higher compliment
since that is exactly what eSTAT is designed to provide to their facility. ‘Being prepared’ truly takes on new
meaning when you are responsible for ‘preparing to care’ for the well being of the many patients and families
that NYGH serves every day.

“ Our experience in implementing LiMe with Clarity

gave us the confidence that they would be responsive,
had a system that could do the work and would
be an excellent partner in the development of this
new toolset.”
Jamie Campbell, B.Ed, BA (Hon.), M.Ed
Director, Organizational Development
North York General Hospital

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 Conclusion

As a community teaching hospital in a continuum of health care

providing compassionate and quality care to diverse communities
in North Toronto and beyond, NYGH offers their culturally diverse
community a wide range of acute care, ambulatory and long-term
care services across three sites. NYGH’s model of care is driven by
the unique needs of their community and their region with an
organizational value system designed around four key values:
Listening to appreciate diversity, Learning through dialogue and
reflection, Leading with courage, transparency and forgiveness
and Serving patients, families and others with kindness.

Committed to embracing new ideas and teaching methods, NYGH is continuously developing and adapting
best practice clinical methods and advancements in care. Additionally, as a Regional Children’s Health Centre
and member of the Child Health Network for the Greater Toronto Area, they also work with other regional
centres and The Hospital for Sick Children to provide coordinated care to children and offer one of the
widest and most comprehensive ranges of services for children and adolescents in the Toronto region.
NYGH is fully committed to living their corporate vision of ‘Community of Success: Serving with Kindness’.

Clarity appreciates the opportunity to partner with an organization like North York General Hospital that is
so unwavering in its dedication to excellence in patient care. Whether it’s providing expert consulting, application
development, application integration, creative design, employee training and/or intranet development services
- our impressive team of experienced multi-disciplined professionals enables us to ensure that our clients are
presented with only the most effective and cost efficient solutions available to support and achieve their
unique organizational and customer service goals.

To explore what innovative solutions Clarity can provide your organization with or to request more information,
please call: (403) 705-5900 or select www.clarity.ca. To learn more about North York General Hospital,
please select www.nygh.on.ca

“ Working with Clarity can be summed up in one word: Responsive! We were able
to easily get in contact with their team, changes were made in a timely fashion and
Clarity always sought to add functionality that we hadn’t considered. While a
seemingly straight forward project, the need to create a variety of surveys and have
them integrated added a level of complexity and Clarity’s team of experts were very
helpful in working with us to create the best work flow possible.”
Jamie Campbell, B.Ed, BA (Hon.), M.Ed
Director, Organizational Development
North York General Hospital

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