FOR THE ATTENTION OF: Hospital CEOs, CFOs, Chiefs of Staff/VPs of Medical Affairs, CNEs/CNOs, CHROs, Patient Safety & Quality Leads, Labour Relations Leads, Occupational Health & Safety Leads, HR Leads, Legal Counsel, Communicators and the OHA Board

OHA Sends Joint Open Letter on Pandemic Pay 

Today, the Ontario Hospital Association and a broad group of health care stakeholders sent an open letter to Premier Ford asking for clarification on the implementation details and timing of the release of pandemic pay to support front line workers employed by the Ministry of Health and the Local Health Integration Networks. The OHA will continue to follow up with government on this issue in the time ahead and will provide updates to members as soon as possible. 

Updated Q&A for Temporary Physician Funding During COVID-19

Further to the May 1, 2020 communication with Q&As, the Ministry of Health has distributed additional frequently asked questions and provided further clarification on temporary physician funding during COVID-19.

A formal reporting template for submission to the Ministry is forthcoming, however in the interim, a sample payment processing template has been created that may be helpful to hospitals for their own customization. For ease of reference, please read the previously circulated guideline document.

The Ministry will continue to provide further information as available; if you have additional inquiries, please contact Hospitals.Branch-HSQFD@ontario.ca.

COVID-19 Education Resources for Healthcare Providers in Hospitals and Long-Term Care

New educational resources have been developed and posted on www.covidcarelearning.ca to assist organizations that are continuing to plan for redeployment to the meet the needs for COVID-19 care. This website was created with the great support of the Ontario healthcare and education communities to provide key resources to prepare healthcare professionals who will be treating Ontarians impacted by COVID-19.

• These resources are intended for anyone in the hospital or long-term care sector, including those involved in the care of COVID-19 and other critically ill patients or residents.
• These resources will continue to be augmented and updated, including the addition of other professions on the team.
• While the learning platform is currently organized by role, you are encouraged to visit the full set of resources across roles, especially where there are cross-disciplinary and overlapping scopes of practice.
• There are four other important sections that address Team-Based Models of Care, Team Wellness and Resilience, Palliative Care and Bioethics.

Please click here to read the Technical FAQs document that provides general troubleshooting.

Instructions:

1. Go to covidcarelearning.ca
2. Click Create new account
3. Enter registration information  
4. Enter the access code Trcc2020!
5. Wait for email confirmation from donotreply@criticalcarelearning.ca with subject line “Critical Care Learning: account confirmation". If you do not receive it within two minutes, check your spam/junk mail folder
6. Login

New Online Tool to Help with Clinical Decision-Making for Patients with Serious Illness

One of the biggest decisions facing patients with serious illness, like with COVID-19 pneumonia, is whether to be intubated or go to the intensive care unit. For many older patients, they would prefer a less intensive clinical pathway. Past research has documented a number of medical errors relating to the use of life-sustaining treatments in the hospital setting. Plan Well Guide is a free, online tool that was developed to help people learn about medical treatments and prepare them for decision-making during a serious illness and reduce these medical errors. The Plan Well Guide helps patients clarify their authentic values and be truly informed about the medical treatment options in the context of serious illness.

A randomized trial of Plan Well Guide was just published in CMAJ Open. Read more about the trial and its findings, here and here.  

For more information or questions, please contact Dr. Daren Heyland at Dkh2@queensu.ca