While the majority of our patients come from within our catchment area, St. Joe’s treats people from across the city, province, and country. St. Joe’s Health Centre’s staff includes over 900 nurses, 400 physicians, and 250 volunteers. Each year we have over 200,000 ambulatory patient visits, 85,000 emergency patient visits, 20,000 inpatient admissions, 3,400 births, and 24,000 surgical cases.

Our Statistics for 2008-2009

Beds: 376
Admissions: 21,188
Average Length of Stay: 5.9 days
Occupancy Rate: 91.6%
Births: 3,332
Diagnostic Imaging Procedures: 150,327
Surgical and Procedural Cases: 28,001

In the Emergency Room

Emergency Department Visits: 85,989
Patients Brought by Ambulance: 14,669
Percentage of Emergency Patients Admitted: 11.0%

Teaching and Lifelong Learning

We delivered over 23,000 days of training to students in medicine, nursing, rehabilitation sciences, respiratory therapy and laboratory medicine to name just a few.

We provided more than $256,000 in educational assistance to 295 staff enrolled in job or career-related certificate, diploma, undergraduate and/or graduate degree educational programs.

Twenty-three professional staff from a wide range of healthcare disiciplines including nursing, respiratory therapy, pharmacy, social work, speech-language pathology and nutrition received Learning is for Life Scholarships. These scholarships, ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 each, were sponsored by TD Bank Financial Group to support educational opportunities for our healthcare professionals. A total of $50,000 is awarded annually thorugh the Learning is for Life Scholarship program.

We Are

• The first modern Paediatric Department in Toronto under Catholic auspices
• Home to the first Intensive Care Unit in Toronto
• Founders of the first Research Foundation in Toronto
• Originators of the first Respiratory Ambulatory Care Program in Toronto
• Founders of the first Birthing Coach Program in Toronto
• The first hospital in Ontario to grant in-hospital delivery services to midwives
• The first hospital in Canada to implement routine Troponin blood tests for myocardial infarction
• The first hospital in North America to have an image-guided system for sinus surgery
• The first hospital in North America to use the Holium laser treatment for urological disorders
• One of the first community teaching hospitals to open two MRI surgical suites
• Home to the second Operating Room Pharmacy Satellite in Canada
• One of the pioneers in the development of digital fluoroscopy
• A leader in Electronic Data Interchange; the first hospital to use a non-proprietary EDI system for purchase orders and purchase order acknowledgement
• A Ventilator Clinic designated by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care
• A reference centre for tumor marker measurements for the City of Toronto
• Acknowledged for our international leadership in otolaryngology, functional and endoscopic sinus surgery and otopathology
• Home to the largest combined medical and surgical chest unit in the Toronto area, which was accredited in 1993 by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada as a teaching unit for thoracic surgery residents
• Recognized by Health Canada and the Child Health Network for best practices in our Toronto Centre for Substance Use in Pregnancy
• One of the first hospitals in Toronto to offer family physicians remote access
• One of the first hospitals in Toronto to integrate PACS filmless technology, providing a faster and more efficient way of storing and sharing images such as x-rays
• A leader in offering laparoscopic abdominal and thoracic surgery
• Home to the second-largest fracture clinic in Ontario
• A referral centre for west-end Toronto in visual fields, orthoptic examinations and fluoroscein angiographic studies
• A Regional Paediatric Centre for southwest Toronto
• Designated as a Regional Dialysis Program by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care
• The first full-time ethics service established in Canada, in partnership with Providence Healthcare and St. Michael's Hospital.

Accreditation

St. Joseph's Health Centre is accredited by Accreditation Canada, formerly the Canadian Council on Health Services Accreditation (CCHSA). In 2009 St. Joseph's Health Centre was awarded a three-year accreditation.

Accreditation is a cornerstone of quality improvement and patient safety initiatives and as such we participate in the accreditation process on a voluntary basis.

By agreeing to Put Patients First and provide the safest care, we believe that our participation in the accreditation Qmentum program, enables our organization to continually assess and improve the services it provides.

Accreditation Canada’s Qmentum program offers a customized process aligned with our organizational needs and priorities. This process includes completion of a self-assessment questionnaire, collection of instrument and indicator data and an on-site survey.

During the on-site visit, external surveyors assess our services against national standards of excellence through a series of tracer activities and interviews involving staff, physicians, patients and visitors. Tracer activities are interactive processes concentrated on direct observation to gather evidence about the organization’s quality of care and services. Our next accreditation survey will take place in 2011.

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Page last updated: December 03, 2009