Internship Open House Tomorrow

Want more information about the provincial internship?

Internship Open House
January 26, 2011,
3:30 to 4:30

Location: Room 108, College Building
College Ave Campus
2155 College Ave
Corner of Scarth St & College Ave

Great Success!

A couple months ago I began research for a project in a subject area that did not have a policy in Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan was the only province or territory that had not taken a position on the specific issue, which left a policy void. There was also a growing urgency to take a position to continue to ensure patient safety.

I wasn’t too sure what would happen to my work but yesterday I was given the go ahead to not only continue my work, but to also to flesh out the background (which will be sent to the Regional Health Authorities and help guide them in making decisions within the new policy) and to write the new policy itself. Yay!

Lean

Last week the theme was "Lean". No, this concept is not my New Years resolution but actually a Government initiative. I attended a series of presentations that illustrated the success of Lean Ministry wide on the topics of strategic planning, blood and plasma, surgical mapping, and special needs equipment loans. Viewing the before and after transformations of these Health areas were pretty amazing.

I touched on Lean a little bit in my last post – but basically the concept is to create a more efficient government by eliminating wasteful practices. Each Lean project has a team leader, and team to support the project. The current state is then evaluated, an implementation plan is created. Then a map is created based on how the process should look in the future.

Here at the Deputy Minister’s Office, the Lean project has been to assess and eliminate bottlenecks in the briefing note process. The project looks at the whole briefing note process - from a briefing note request to final approval and send-over to the Minister’s Office. The former Assistant to the Deputy Minister was the lead of the project, and in her absence I am the new team leader. I am pretty excited about the project, and hope to see it to completion!

Freeing up time

Last week I went to Weyburn with the Deputy Minister to tour Weyburn General Hospital and discuss Releasing Time to Care with healthcare professionals.

Releasing Time to Care is basically a Lean process used to free up caregivers' time so they can spend more time on direct patient care. The premise is that frontline staff, rather than the Ministry identify and alter inefficient practices. Though doing this healthcare professionals will have more time to spend with patients.

Although the program began with nursing staff, everyone involved in providing care or services (care assistants, pharmacists, therapists, physicians, housekeeping staff, maintenance workers, and dietary staff) have an important role to play in implementing Releasing Time to Care. This is because creating efficiencies in isolation of each other will have less of a positive impact for patients, and we want to maximize the benefits of the program.

In Weyburn, the Deputy Minister and Health Quality Council gave a short presentation and then let the healthcare professions comment and ask questions. Since Releasing Time to Care is newer to Weyburn than some of the other regions, there were some skeptics, but we are planning to return in a couple months and see how they are doing.

Similarly, in the spirit of freeing up time I also got to present the new email and meeting protocol the Ministry has adopted to the Senior Leadership Team (an internal meeting with the Deputy Minister, Assistant Deputy Ministers and Executive Directors). We are piloting the changes in order to get through emails, and manage meetings more effectively.

Working Away

Some of you might start questioning whether I am actually an intern so I decided to post some photo evidence. Here is a picture of me and my mentor, Dan Florizone, the Deputy Minister of Health. I personally liked the picture where I looked like the boss, but I think this is more fitting.