Share Today, Shape Tomorrow: 2023 Engagement & Demographic Survey

Women’s College Hospital works with a third-party survey partner, Metrics@Work, to conduct an engagement and demographic survey for employees, physicians and volunteers.

This on-line survey is confidential and anonymous. While participation in the survey isn’t mandatory, we encourage all our staff, physicians and volunteers to participate. Your feedback provides a snapshot of how satisfied you are to work at WCH and what changes can be made to make the hospital an even better place to work.

Women’s College Hospital is committed to fostering a positive work and practice environment for all its employees and physicians as well as a place where people choose to volunteer.

The survey is a formal opportunity to share your experiences and feedback on areas including sense of belonging, respect and support, recognition, opportunity for growth and development, and more. By sharing your experiences, you can help us further our efforts in making Women’s one of the best places to work, practise and volunteer.

Additionally, as a requirement of the Excellent Care for All Act, WCH is mandated to complete an employee engagement survey every two years.

You can complete the online survey between Monday, October 23 and 11:59 pm Sunday, November 12, 2023. Survey results will be shared in January/February 2024.

Staff, physicians, and volunteers from across Women’s College Hospital and the Foundation are being asked to participate in the survey, including full-time, contract and casual employees and physicians. Students, staff on leave of absence and new hires onboarding the week prior to the survey launch will not be asked to participate in the survey.

While your participation is not mandatory, we encourage everyone to share their feedback. Every voice matters and we have a shared responsibility to provide feedback so that we can continue to provide world-class care while being a top employer. We all play a role in encouraging colleagues to participate in the survey and ensure we have robust input.

Through your active participation you are helping to shape the future of Women’s.

Yes, your feedback counts! The information and input we gather from you helps us make deep and meaningful improvements across the organization, down to the departmental level. Whether it’s a small tweak in our daily operations, a significant change in our patient care protocols, or additional Wellness and workplace culture initiatives throughout the year, you have proven to be an vital resource in ensuring we remain one of Greater Toronto’s Top 100 Employers, as well as a hospital Accredited with Exemplary Standing. It’s your firsthand experience and expertise that enables us to innovate, grow, and offer the best possible care to our community.

We encourage you to look at the Feedback Drives Change Hub to learn about all the initiatives that have been implemented as a result of feedback from the 2022 survey.

Yes. The survey responses are collected and analyzed by our survey partner, Metrics@Work. To ensure your confidentiality and anonymity is maintained, Metrics@Work ensures that:

• • Usernames and passwords are not stored in a database containing your survey responses

• • Usernames and passwords to access the survey are randomly generated and sent to all users from an offsite server

• • No individual data results are sent or available to Women’s College Hospital

• • Survey results reports contain only grouped information, no reports will be generated for a group of less than five employees and each group must have at least three survey respondents for a report to be produced.

You will receive an email to your Women’s College Hospital address from our survey partner, Metrics@Work, on Monday, October 23, with a link to our online engagement and demographic survey. If you have not received an email from Metrics@Work, notify: OrganizationalandTalentDev@wchospital.ca as soon as possible.

The survey will take approximately 20-30 minutes (uninterrupted time) to complete.

Yes. You will be provided time to complete the survey during your regular work hours.

There are 12 computers in the Computer Lab located on Level 2 in the C.A.C.E (Centre for Ambulatory Education) department. You may access the Computer Lab 24/7 with your I.D. badge.

If you need assistance completing the survey, staff from Metrics@Work, our survey partner, are available Monday – Friday from 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Call 1-800-726-4082 or send an email to: info@metricsatwork.com.

You can also contact OrganizationalandTalentDev@wchospital.ca for assistance.

Everyone who completes the survey will receive a $10 Starbucks gift card. You will also have the option to opt into a weekly draw to win great prizes, including a Sutherland Chan 30-minute treatment gift certificate, daily parking passes, a Dell 24” monitor and more! Our survey partner, Metrics@Work, will manage the random draws and provide our Organizational and Talent Development Team with the names of the winners to contact for prize pick up location.

To learn more about the contests and prizes, click here.

Your responses will be grouped with the responses from your colleagues within your department and analyzed by Metrics@Work. Reports, grouped by department, will be shared with Women’s College Hospital. The reports will highlight trends and will determine noteworthy points for discussion and action at a corporate and departmental level.

Individual responses will remain confidential and anonymous. In addition, no report will be generated for a group of less than five employees and each group must have at least three survey respondents for a report to be produced.

The results of the Engagement and Demographic Survey for employees, physicians and volunteers will be shared in early 2024. The Women’s College Hospital senior leadership team will review the aggregated results and a summary prepared by Metrics@Work in January 2024. The results will then be shared with each department and the Leader will engage the team in identifying opportunities for improvement based on the feedback from the survey.

With a broad range of Wellness support programs that help make Women’s a great place to work, we’ve created a timeline of recent and upcoming wellness supports.

June 2022

Mental Health Workshops

Partnered with our EFAP provider Homewood Health to offer employees educational workshops on topics like mental health and stigma, respectful relationships in the workplace and healthy sleep habits.

October 2022

Healthy Workplace Month, Team Building & Door Decorating Contest

-Partnered with CMHA to offer Mental Health First Aid Training to WCH leaders to support the psychological health and safety of their teams.
– Collaborated with the Healthy Hospital Working Group to promote a joint campaign for Healthy Workplace Month.
– Encouraged community and team building with our first hospital-wide Door Decorating Contest.

November 2022

Ergonomoics

Launched the refreshed Ergonomics program to offer employees a stream-lined approach to scheduling ergonomics assessments through an online tool, which included the addition of Work from Home Ergonomic Assessments

December 2022

 

Holiday Wellness Cart

Celebrated the holidays with the Holiday Wellness Cart which offered candy grams, snacks and beverages to employees

February 2023

Your Health Space

Partnered with Your Health Space to offer mental health training to staff and physicians on topics like burnout, managing stress in the workplace, and exploring psychological health and safety.

April 2023

Ergonomics Newsletter

Promoted ergonomics with the addition of ergonomics newsletters and a steps challenge to encourage safe movement.

May 2023

Art Circle Sessions & Therapy Dogs

– In collaboration with the Centre for Wise Practice and Indigenous Health, Art Circle Sessions are offered to staff monthly to provide a space for artistic expression and community building.
– Introduced Dog Therapy to all employees.

July 2023

Wellness Break Videos

Introduced Wellness Breaks a video series focused on providing step-by-step guidance for employees to incorporate more movement into their day.

October 2023

Wellness Expo & Door Decorating Contest

– Launch of the WCH Health and Wellness Expo on October 4, 2023. External and internal hospital partners will showcase their services and resources for employees and how it supports their health and well-being. Additional events such as Zumba, Educational Workshops and Therapy Dogs will be offered.
–  Return of our annual Healthy Workplace Month Campaign in partnership with the Healthy Hospital Working Group and Door Decorating Contest

Our greatest strength is in our People. Your feedback helps shape the organization to ensure WCH is a place you love to work and practice.

• Respect in the Workplace: In partnership with Medical Affairs, OHSW has developed Respect in the Workplace as part of our Workplace Violence Prevention Program. The program includes building awareness of the importance of reporting all incidents of incivility in the workplace.
• De-escalation training: OHSW has resumed in person De-escalation training offerings which is available to any WCH team member. This is included as a deliverable on the Wellness and Organizational Resilience Committee (WORC) workplan and was a direct result of the 2022 Employee Engagement Survey responses.
• Ergonomics: OHSW has refreshed the Ergonomics program to provide increased ergonomic assessments for onsite and work from home to ensure appropriate work set up through in person and online tools and resources (see Wellness tab for more information)

Learning & Development

• Best Practice Guideline Quality Improvement (BPG QI): With responses provided in the 2022 Employee Engagement Survey, Best Practice Spotlight Organizations (BPSO) has attained the data needed to demonstrate the importance of the BPG QI program. Following the success of Cohort #1, BPSO has received operational approval for Cohort #2 along with continuing the deliverance of QI training and education to WCH staff. This is now embedded in the Wellness and Organizational Resilience work plan as a hospital priority.
• Blue Ocean Brain: Online skills development platform grounded in neuroscience that offers micro- lessons to develop your personal and professional skills. Fresh, bite-sized content is available to all staff, physicians, and learners with topics including: Communication, Productivity, Wellness, Inclusion and Diversity, Leadership and more! Weekly short lessons are pushed out by email every Tuesday from WCH Organizational and Talent Development. To explore this digital library, go to: www.blueoceanbrain.com to login with your WCH account our stay tuned to your WCH email!
• Education Support Fund: The Education Support Fund is designed to provide funding to a WCH staff person who is working on a degree or diploma program, long or short-term certificate, or is attending a conference, seminar or workshop that aligns with the strategic direction of the hospital and supports the skills related to the applicant’s role.

• Leadership Essentials for Advancement Program (LEAP): LEAP is a new offering from WCH Organizational and Talent Development that is designed for supervisors and emerging leaders who are nominated by colleagues and managers. This program develops fundamental leadership skills through a series of modules for roles that have significant opportunities to influence frontline team members, impacting individual well-being and team performance.

• Professional Practice: Conversations with preceptors to better understand needs and how to work with Professional Practice to support the professional development and wellness of preceptors.

The 2022 Physician Engagement Survey yielded meaningful change with the goal of supporting our teams in providing the best possible care to our patients.

Operational Updates

• • Digital Quality Committee – To support ongoing optimization of digital wellness and quality across WCH, we have developed the hospital Digital Quality Committee to work through the challenges facing front-line staff and providers as it relates to digital care. The 21-member cross-disciplinary committee meets bi-monthly to support the assessment and operationalization of digital quality improvement opportunities and provides governance in the review and prioritization of change requests and projects.

• • Digital Referral Management (DRM) – Since the transition from the Access Centre, the digital referral management (DRM) program has transformed how referrals are handled in the organization and steered the spread of paper-less end-to-end referral digitization workflow in EPIC to over half of clinics in the hospital, with the ongoing roll out of Ocean e-Referral and e-Consult. The impact is that over 90% of referrals managed through DRM are meeting the CPSO guidelines, now taking an average of five days from receipt to notification. Clinicians, administrative staff and triaging providers have found this process to be efficient, and better integrated into local workflows.

• • In Basket Tune Up – In accordance with putting patients before administrative work, our Digital Quality Committee have engaged in an in-basket tune up which supports purging low-value messages and automation of future purges to create a more sustainable in-basket of important messages and more time to do high-value care. Addendum notifications and CC charts messages purge resulted in over 90% reduction and have improved the portal interface to streamline messaging and enhance the workflow of asynchronous messaging.

• • Care Everywhere – Care Everywhere is EPIC’s solution to cross-organization sharing of patient charts to support better integration across hospitals. Providers at WCH can now see their patients’ information from other EPIC enabled hospitals (and vice versa), improving safety, knowledge transfer, and quality of care. In our 9 months of hosting patient record exchange, we have sent/received data for over 300,000 patient records, with the largest trading party being the University Health Network. We are moving towards better interoperability with our hospital information systems.

• • Video Visit Optimization (ViVO) – To support the expansion of virtual care supporting the vision of WCH as Canada’s first Virtual Hospital, and in response to Ontario Health’s changes to physician billing for virtual visits, we have optimized the video visit experience and efficiency for providers and patients, including: automatic zoom links emailed to patients; enhanced patient notifications; improved onboarding and training; and the roll out dual monitors across the hospital. These enhancements have removed barriers to virtual visits and improved efficiency to ensure that patients and providers have access to different modalities of care delivery, that includes both hybrid of in-person and virtual visits. 35% of eligible appointments are now conducted virtually and we have improved the end-user experience for patients and providers.

Learning & Development

• • Wellness Workshops: WCH partnered with the Canadian Mental Health Association to offer physicians two workshops through Your Health Space, with a focus on burnout and fostering trauma-informed workplaces

• • Physician Leadership Opportunities: Introduction of an updated, transparent process by which physician leadership positions and roles are posted, an interview panel is formed, and selected candidates are interviewed.

• • Training and Educational Support: Continued funding and support to physicians through the WCH Foundation:

    • • The Jean Davey Honorary Fund was established to encourage and support all aspects of the dissemination of knowledge and information leading to the improvement of patient care at Women’s College Hospital.
    • • The Marion Hilliard Trust Fund was established for the teaching, training and educational support of physicians and health care providers associated with Women’s College Hospital in areas aligned with its mission, vision and programs.
    • • Access to funding through The Emily Stowe Society.

Occupational Health Safety & Wellness (OHSW)

• • Respect in the Workplace: Medical Affairs and OHSW have developed Respect in the Workplace as part of our Workplace Violence Prevention Program. The program includes building awareness of the importance of reporting all incidents of incivility in the workplace.

Our volunteers play an important role in supporting our teams across Women’s College Hospital. Over the past 18 months, we’ve made improvements to our volunteer team’s structure and modalities.