Quality and Patient Safety Governance Toolkit Working Group

The Ontario Hospital Association’s (OHA) Governance Centre of Excellence (GCE) and Health Quality Ontario (HQO) acknowledge and thank the following members of the Working Group for their many contributions to the development of the Toolkit. We are grateful for their commitment to the Toolkit, and to improving quality and patient safety in Ontario hospitals.

Trish Baird – Board Chair, Campbellford Memorial Hospital
Mike Heenan – Director, Patient Safety, risk and Quality, Credit Valley Hospital
Ray Hunt – CEO, Espanola General Hospital
Anne Marie Malek – CEO, Westpark Healthcare Centre
Jennifer Rodgers – Director, Patient Safety, Quality & Risk Management, Royal Victoria Hospital
Bill Rogers – Board Member, Trillium Health Centre
Kathy Stauffer – Board Chair, Brant Community Healthcare

Elizabeth Carlton – Director, Policy & Legislative/Legal Affairs, Ontario Hospital Association
Ben Chan – CEO, Health Quality Ontario
Sundeep Sodhi – Project Lead, Quality and Patient Safety Governance Toolkit; Governance Consultant, Ontario Hospital Association

Reviewers

The OHA, GCE and HQO also acknowledge the reviewers listed below for providing their expertise in patient safety, quality improvement, and/or governance in their review of the Toolkit.

Karen Born – PhD Candidate, Department of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto
David Brown – Past Chair, OHA Governance Leadership Council
James Conway – Senior Fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement
Anne Corbett – Partner, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP
Jim Mackay – Managing Partner, Berkeley Consulting Group

Eileen Patterson – Director of Quality Improvement, Health Quality Ontario
Neil Stuart – Past Chair, OHA Board Governance Committee

The OHA/GCE/HQO Partnership

Recognizing a need for practical tools that specifically target hospital boards, the OHA, its GCE, and HQO partnered to develop this online quality and patient safety governance toolkit for hospital boards in Ontario. Together, we researched national and international leading practices in quality and patient safety governance, and adapted these findings to the Ontario setting. 

Feedback from hospitals also informed the development of this toolkit. The OHA, GCE and HQO struck a working group of hospital board members, chief executive officers, and directors of patient safety from different hospital types and sizes to provide practical guidance and advice throughout the toolkit’s development. Results from the past two GCE Governance Surveys were also reviewed, particularly where hospital board chairs identified patient safety and quality governance as a top issue that requires support from the OHA. From the OHA’s perspective, this toolkit builds on the success of its 2008 policy document Quality and Patient Safety: Understanding the Role of the Board which can be viewed as a primer for this toolkit. 

The OHA, GCE and HQO are proud to present this toolkit, especially at a time when hospital boards are facing new challenges in quality and patient safety governance.