Lindsay, December 19, 2001

"We have always been enthusiastic participants in the Hospital Report Cards," says Anthony Vines, President and CEO, Ross Memorial Hospital, "because we recognize that the Reports provide us with the opportunity to demonstrate our commitment to public accountability and to improving services for patients and their families."

The Hospital Report Card series is an evolutionary process. First, system-wide reports are developed, which are a "trial run" for the next step, hospital-specific reports that detail the results of each participating hospital across the province. The Reports for both Complex Continuing Care and Emergency Departments are system-wide reports only and do not include hospital specific results this year. These Reports examine the province as a whole and divide the results into five different regions and hospitals of different sizes. However, they do provide excellent indicators for each hospital to work with their Quality Improvement Teams to develop initiatives that will provide better and more efficient services to their patients.

In July 2001, the Hospital Report 2001 for Acute Care was released. This was the first report in the series that contained hospital-specific results. In this particular report, Ross Memorial scored well with most of the performance indicators being either at or above the provincial average in almost all categories. According to researchers, a rating of average means that a hospital is in line with the provincial norm and as the overall results are very favourable, a rating of average actually represents a high standard of performance.

"All of these positive results," explains Mr. Vines, "can be attributed to the outstanding commitment of our nurses, physicians, staff and volunteers. We appreciate their dedication and commitment to this Hospital and our community."

The Ontario Hospital Association and the Government of Ontario sponsored these Reports. The work was done by a group of independent researchers from a number of different organizations, including Providence Centre, the University of Toronto and the Institute for Clinical and Evaluation Sciences, among others.