The Chatham-Kent Health Alliance is honouring several health care professionals with an Alliance Award of Excellence – the most prestigious honour that one can earn at the CKHA.
The annual awards program has been running for 13 years, and honours staff who ‘exemplify performance excellence within and beyond the healthcare environment’.
The following biographies are courtesy of the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance.
Mission Award: Terry Dejonge, Clinical Resource Nurse, Emergency Department, Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Program – Terry, a Registered Nurse working in CKHA’s Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence (SA/DV) Program and as a Clinical Resource Nurse for the Emergency Department (ED) is highly dedicated to advancing compassionate quality care for patients and those seen within the SA/DV Program. Part of Terry’s role is to ensure stakeholders are informed of upcoming changes within the SA/DV Program and to seek guidance and advice from experts within a particular field when required. Pharmacy, Lab, Public Health and Professional Practice all play an important role within the ED and SA/DV Programs. Terry works cohesively with these and other groups to ensure the safe delivery of patient care. She consistently shows compassion day-to-day not only within the program, but with her co-workers and patients she cares for. Her knowledge and commitment to advancing high quality care makes her a role model and ‘go to’ within the department for practice changes and new initiatives. Terry is truly invested in her work, ensuring that patients have safe and timely access to high quality care.
Vision Award: Dr. Anthony Dixon, Chief and Program Medical Director of Emergency Medicine – Dr. Dixon, as Chief and Program Medical Director of Emergency Medicine, has demonstrated CKHA’s vision of being an exceptional community hospital, setting standards – exceeding expectations through his work in improving access to physicians within the ED. Dr. Dixon’s work in aligning physician shifts to better meet patient flow has been commendable and has proven to be a real improvement to access. So far by all indications, his efforts have been very successful at reducing Physician Initial Assessment (PIA) wait times for patients while not sacrificing on other quality indicators tracked for the ED. The proof of his work is demonstrated in CKHA’s PIA wait time ranking that brought the organization to being in the top third (24th out of 73 hospitals) in June, July and August. While being an innovator and challenging the process is a definite strength of Dr. Dixon, he has also been very respectful that others are experts in their field, and by better understanding the impacts on the ED, he helps others re-evaluate their work and shift to better meet patient needs.
Values Award: Leanne Crawford, Registered Practical Nurse, Emergency Department – Leanne is a Registered Practical Nurse within CKHA’s ED and has served as Chief Steward for the Christian Labour Association of Canada (CLAC) for the last 9 years. She is compassionate, respectful and considered a leader within her department and the organization. Leanne always demonstrates a positive attitude and approach in everything she does. She respects others and is respected throughout the department and organization as she has navigated her way through union leadership, her clinical nursing role and as a nursing instructor. She displays strong leadership and teamwork skills – not only through her role as Chief Steward but also through supporting internal departmental process changes to improve patient flow and the patient and staff experience. Leanne is consistently advocating for a positive culture and relationships within the nursing profession and interdisciplinary team members. Leanne is a very caring, compassionate and skilled nurse whose approach with patients, peers and leaders makes a difference.
Team Award: Complex Discharge Review Team (Andrea Ellis, Colleen Lewis, Darlene Robert, Corinne Shaw, Mark Carr, Antonia Rivard, Jackie Duceder-Vanheule, Kimberly Arens, Kimberly Smith, Shane Helgerman) – The Complex Discharge Review is a process to discharge patients safely home and maintain the ‘home first philosophy’. This process involves a dynamic team of formal leaders, social workers, Unit Clinical Leaders, Erie St. Clair Local Health Integration Network (ESC LHIN) and community partners. Enhancing the patient experience through collaborative team work in creating safe discharge plans is this team’s goal. Collectively, the Complex Discharge Review team comes up with several options for discharge and often creates out of the box solutions to meet patient needs. This team creates joint plans, individual plans and back up plans for patient sustainability in the community and provides constant reassurance to patients and their families during the discharge process. In addition to providing safe discharges, this team has had a positive impact on patient flow through efficiencies to inpatient beds, utilization, and Alternative Level of Care (ALCs). An unexpected outcome of this group’s work was improved relationships with community partners such as ESC LHIN, Alzheimer’s Society and March of Dimes.
