The Emergency Department has seen an increase in the volume of patients, in the acuity and in staffing pressures. The team continuously adapted to meet the needs of their patients. They redesigned their department to improve patient flow and safety and partnered with the Ottawa Paramedic Services to care for more patients.

Over the past year, QCH has helped over 80,000 patients in our ED. Since the hospital was more than 100% full most of the time, more than 3,500 patient days were spent overnight in ED while waiting for an inpatient bed. This isn't ideal - no one wants to practice hallway medicine - but the hospital continues to look for innovative ways to provide care to those in need.

Even in normal times, the ICU is a challenging unit in which to work. You see patients and families at their most difficult time.

For those who are not in the ICU seeing the impact of COVID-19, it can be difficult to grasp the intensity of the virus on the body. Delta was the hardest wave for our ICU team, with the highest ICU occupancy the team had ever faced. A secondary ICU was created to support patients who did not require ventilation. Five new permeant beds were added to the unit. Additional ICU space was created through the efforts of our perioperative team, who pivoted to caring for ICU patients at different points during the pandemic.

Despite every effort, and a skilled clinical team that really cares, some patients did not recover from COVID-19. Every person in our care matters deeply. Every loss is felt, as professionals and as humans. We are proud of our ICU team for the care and compassion they provided to every patient and family, and the strength they showed during this challenging time.

When COVID-19 first hit in March 2020, a lot was shut down, including non-urgent surgeries. Cases were reviewed, surgeries were postponed and, unfortunately, patients had to wait.

During the first and second waves, the perioperative program staff were redeployed to a variety of areas: ICU, ED, inpatient units, testing in long-term and retirement homes. They supported a secondary ICU. They stepped up to the plate for their peers, our patients, and our community. It was challenging, but they provided great care.

In May 2021, we started ramping up surgeries again, with staffing to support about 70 - 80% of our pre-COVID surgical volumes. We were able to slow the growth of the backlog. Then came Omicron. There was a new provincial Directive 2 to again cease non-urgent surgeries. The perioperative and surgical teams united, creating an overload Med/Surg Unit in their Day Surgery area within 48 hours. They continued to support their surgical program, and the hospital around them.

Fast-forward to today. QCH faces a surgical backlog of 5,800 elective main OR procedures. We are implementing a surgery recovery plan to increase OR capacity, tackle the backlog and get patients the procedures they need. As part of this, we are actively onboarding nurses with specialized skills and training staff. Unfortunately, there is a nationwide shortage of staff with these specialized skills and, as a result, our ORs are currently running at 60% capacity. In September, we will increase our capacity to 70% at minimum, possibly more as staffing allows. By November we plan to be at 90% capacity.

Every wave had an impact on patients. We see it. We appreciate the waiting is hard. Our team is now focused on what they do best – and moving forward caring for each surgical patient, one at a time, each patient the center of all we do. Thank you for your patience and support.

At the beginning of 2021, a second floor was added to our offsite inpatient unit at Fairfield Inn & Suites to further increase hospital capacity. The hotel-turned-hospital has been caring for patients since it opened in April 2020, offering a safe and secure space for patients – while supporting the main site by adding additional bed capacity.

In March 2021, QCH opened a vaccine clinic onsite to support the regional vaccine rollout and was part of multiple vaccine strike teams in retirement and long-term care homes across Ottawa. When children became eligible for the vaccine last winter, QCH’s vaccine clinic pivoted to give Ottawa’s youngest residents their first doses.

QCH’s COVID-19 Vaccine Clinic administered over 62,000 doses before closing in January 2022.

The Moodie COVID-19 Care & Testing Centre, which is operated by QCH and opened within weeks in March 2020, continually expands and contracts based on the demand for testing and provincial direction. By the fall of 2021, the demand for testing rose again. The Moodie team expanded their hours, temporarily working weekends over the winter to meet it. Additionally, to help with higher ED volumes, Moodie partnered with the Ottawa Paramedic Service to divert low-acuity COVID-19 patients from Emergency and provide care at the clinic.

To date, the Moodie team has cared for and tested over 150,000 patients.

QCH is made up of skilled and compassionate healthcare workers - but bias is human. We recognize that systematic racism exists here at QCH like it does in our community - and we are committed to doing better. We will continue to learn more and to do more to ensure QCH is a safe and compassionate environment for everyone.

We have embedded Diversity, Equity and Inclusion as part of our hospital strategy, and have become a partner organization with the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion.

Work has started to build a better understanding of Indigenous culture, including QCH partnering with the Ottawa Aboriginal Council to develop an Indigenous healing practices policy, with considerations for health equity and the inclusion of traditional medicine. We introduced a new smudging procedural document which has already been used several times. Despite staffing shortages, over 160 staff members across the hospital completed specialized Indigenous Cultural Safety training, with more to come.

Virtual care was introduced during the pandemic and continues to be rolled out in various areas across QCH, including Mental Health, Outpatient Rehabilitation, our offsite Geriatric Day hospital, and our Chronic Disease Management and Skin and Soft Tissue clinics. QCH expanded to offering almost 50% virtual care in these areas, resulting in positive patient satisfaction. A virtual post-surgical recovery program is also being piloted for certain surgeries, allowing these patients to recover comfortably from home with virtual support from their care team. Virtual care will continue to expand at QCH as we work on a strategy for further. future implementation as part of our work towards a virtual first philosophy.

QCH has upgraded its Medical Imaging and picture archiving software. Patients will benefit from state-of-the-art technology and the best possible imaging for their care, including 3D imaging on our new Mammography equipment. This will also improve Radiologist workflow and manage system failures without impacting clinicians.

Despite the pandemic, a record 72 more QCH nurses completed the specialized NICHE Geriatric Resource Nurse training course - a real testament to their commitment to continually improve care. This course provides our nurses access to the same training offered to some of the world's top geriatric hospitals, including the Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, and UCLA Health System.

Last fall, QCH opened 2-3 beds on a level 2 ICU to support patients that require very close monitoring for a short term, such as those with DKA (diabetic ketoacidosis) or on CiWa (alcohol withdrawal support).

QCH’s Patient and Family Advisory Council (PFAC) team is involved in numerous initiatives across the hospital that focus on improving the patient and family experience. PFAC provides observations and suggestions that are not always seen by health professionals, making their contributions essential to improving care. They've been involved with the electronic Patient Portal, the hospital's pandemic response and hospital renovations, among many other projects.

Our Health Records Team has improved the turnaround of patient care documentation and provides up-to-date data to support clinical decisions. Inpatient charts are now online within 48 hours post-discharge, and clinic and ED visits are online within 24 hours.

Hope.

For more than two years we have been up against some seemingly insurmountable obstacles and faced extraordinary challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic has tested our strength and resiliency, but today there is a renewed sense of hope that we have made it through the most difficult of moments, and now it’s time to look to the future.

Thanks to the generosity of our long-standing donors, new supporters, corporate partners and businesses, community groups, schools, and many more organizations and clubs, QCH Foundation recorded strong fundraising results to close out our fiscal year on March 31, 2022. With tremendous support from the community and our QCH family, we raised more than $5.8 million. These results punctuate a five-year trend of consistently raising $5 million for Queensway Carleton Hospital. Through the pandemic, our community has continued to rally around our beloved hospital, showing immense gratitude to the team for their herculean efforts.

Even though we were focused on navigating the ever-changing world of COVID-19, we realized some remarkable moments that should be noted, and celebrated. Together, with our donors, we distributed more than $4.6M to QCH to assist with the purchase of vital equipment and upgrades to the surgical suites, along with other top hospital priorities.

It is with immense gratitude that we share our annual Donor Impact Report. We invite you to read the full impact of your generosity by visiting qchfoundation.ca/report.

On behalf of the Board of Directors and the team at QCH, we humbly thank our community of donors for their unwavering support. Your kindness and compassion continues to be a shining light and beacon of hope. By working together, we are championing local healthcare and ensuring our loved ones have access to world-class care, close to home.

With gratitude,

Shannon Gorman

President & CEO, Foundation

Ronald Richardson

Board Chair, QCH Foundation 

As a Board, we could not be more inspired by the resilience of the hospital and our community after two years responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over the last year, we have worked to support the hospital and its leadership through various challenges, particularly the staffing shortages and fatigue felt across the organization. We are proud of what they accomplished and the improvements they have made despite the obstacles they faced.

Some of the Board’s work in support of the hospital and the community includes:

• Strategic Planning: We worked with the hospital to modify the strategy planning approach with a focus on stabilizing the organization while moving forward on quality goals at a measured pace.
• Ontario Health Team: We worked with the hospital through the approvals with the Ministry of Health to officially form the Ottawa West Four Rivers Health Team -- a collaboration of over 60 health system partners from the Arnprior, North Grenville, Carleton Place, Almonte and West Ottawa regions.
• Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DEI): We support and guide the hospital in its DEI journey, increasing our focus in this key area. We are thankful to have started the year with an education session from the Ottawa Aboriginal Coalition, and for a new partnership with The Canadian Center for Diversity & Inclusion. DEI continues to be a key consideration in Board membership to ensure we properly reflect the diversity of our community.
• Strengthening Board committees: We have brought three new Community Members on Board committees – building additional strength and diversity of opinion. We have also streamlined Board meetings and reporting to focus better on key risks, opportunities, and governance responsibilities.
• Financial oversight: The pandemic also created financial challenges and ambiguities, with the hospital adding the Fairfield in-patient unit and Moodie Testing and Care Center, and other atypical expenses. The Board oversaw the difficult financial period and worked with management to ensure financial stability.

The hospital’s greatest risks are inter-related: bed capacity and staffing shortages. It is a daily challenge for the organization to ensure it has enough beds and enough staff to deliver the high-quality care that is its hallmark. Two years of pandemic have exasperated the already-challenging situation. We thank the staff and physicians of QCH for their commitment to this community and each other.

As Ontario moves past the election and through the pandemic recovery period, we anticipate there being much reflection on the health system, and substantive change. The Board will closely monitor the evolving landscape and advocate for this hospital and the community it serves.