North York General Hospital (NYGH), in collaboration with Nursing Practice Solutions, Smith & Nephew and the Central Community Care Access Centre, implemented a program in skin and wound care that has made best-practice, evidenced-based wound care management possible, affordable and sustainable. Focused action using advanced wound care products and proven clinical approaches has dramatically improved the identification, protection and support of skin integrity.Wound prevention and management are among the most direct and cost-effective measures a healthcare organization can take to improve patient safety and quality of life, and they allow for the reduction of expenditures and re-allocation of funds into other important areas. The Skin and Wound Care Program was designed to create and maintain resources within NYGH to ensure the delivery of consistent, best-practice wound prevention and management. The program has successfully sustained a significant reduction in the prevalence of pressure ulcers. Benefits of the program include improved patient safety, health and quality of life.The Skin and Wound Care Program has seen the transfer of knowledge and evidence-based best practices to both the bedside and the community. Extending the collaborative effort beyond the walls of NYGH has helped the hospital gain further insight into and experience with our community partners to spread skin and wound best practices across the healthcare continuum. Lessons learned have been shared with other healthcare organizations in forums such as the Congress of the World Union of Wound Healing Societies, thus contributing to the advancement of continuous improvement in healthcare.

The measurement of the patient experience is a global movement that has caught the attention of healthcare reformers. The use of patient experience data to ameliorate healthcare practice is promising, although standardization in what, where, how and whose experience is measured does not yet exist. To truly further the patient experience agenda, there needs to be adoption at the system, regional and local level to help promote, inspire and lead to sustainable change. Caregiver insight into the patient experience should be leveraged to learn what is important to patients and extract more useful data, as they are often present during transitions in care that span across the continuum. Embracing the voice of the patient as part of the process to improve quality, outcomes and experience will no doubt lead to impactful change and better care.

The Toronto SARS outbreak began in February 2003 and lasted more than 16 weeks. The city and its health care system faced enormous challenges in responding to this new infectious disease, learning about its transmission, diagnosis and treatment, in containing its spread and in coping with its socioeconomic impact. As the site of a significant cluster of cases in the second wave of the outbreak, North York General Hospital (NYGH) quickly adapted many components of its operations, focusing on the fight against SARS. In order to assess potential SARS cases in a safe, efficient and effective manner, NYGH established a SARS assessment clinic. We describe the design features, construction, layout and operation of this clinic. This type of clinic can be rapidly deployed and may be of great value during future infectious outbreaks, including pandemic influenza.

In Canada, over 15,000 residents of long-term care have died from COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic representing 59 percent of all COVID-19 deaths (National Institute of Ageing, 2021). Urgent research and subsequent applied action are needed to save life and quality of life including the presence of family (CFHI, 2020). Social and physical frailty are major systemic patient safety gaps and are challenges for most healthcare organizations. This practitioner-led panel of experienced human factors, implementation science and healthcare experts used a case study of a project at North York General Hospital’s Seniors’ Health Centre in Toronto to discuss how these challenges can be addressed with serious games. The project discussed used games that aim to reduce social and physical frailty through exercise while interacting with remote families. Lessons learned to-date and challenges observed, in rapidly implementing safety and human factors programs intended to create resilient residents in a real healthcare context were discussed.