October 24, 2022
Dear colleagues,
On behalf of our staff, physicians, students, volunteers, clients and their families, please join me in honouring our infection control staff during National Infection Prevention and Control Week and our health information staff during Health Information Professionals Week.
National Infection Prevention and Control Week (October 17 – 21, 2022).
During this week, we acknowledge the valuable work infection control professionals do every day to keep us safe and healthy. This year’s theme, Spread Prevention – not infection, underscores the importance of prevention by performing foundational IPAC practices, which are always more impactful than treating the results of not performing these practices. In fact, healthcare-associated infections can be reduced by up to 70% by utilizing an array of effective IPC interventions (World Health Organization). This week is a time to show appreciation for the IPAC staff who work tirelessly to ensure our campus is a safe environment for clients, their families and staff members.
Health Information Professionals Week (October 17 – 21, 2022).
This week, we celebrate the health information management professionals who work tirelessly behind the scenes to maintain quality and integrity in patient clinical information while protecting our patients’ and residents’ right to privacy. These individuals are responsible for registration, managing and maintaining electronic and paper records, designing, building, implementing and training end users on new documentation systems, enabling workflow process improvement through digital/electronic tools, ensuring data quality, encoding of clinical information, organizing, analyzing and providing data to improve knowledge, patient outcomes and plan new programs and services. This week is a recognition of the skill, knowledge and the many ways these individuals move our work forward.
We also acknowledge these individuals who have worked diligently and proficiently throughout the tumultuous changes and unprecedented challenges facing our IPAC and health information staff during the pandemic. Please join me in recognizing the exceptional service of these staff members.
Scott Ovenden
President and CEO, Baycrest Hospital and Long Term Care Home
Please post this message for staff members who do not use email. Thank you.