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Burnaby Hospital hammered in Fraser Health review

Burnaby Hospital took a pounding in a recent provincial review of the Fraser Health Authority.
burnaby hospital
Burnaby Hospital.

Burnaby Hospital took a pounding in a recent provincial review of the Fraser Health Authority.

“Burnaby Hospital is showing flags in nearly all patient-safety indicators,” states the report, summing up a long list of deficiencies found at the local health-care facility.

Topping the list was the hospital’s performance on so-called “nursing-sensitive adverse events” – pneumonia, urinary tract infections, fractures and pressure ulcers that patients get from their stay in hospitals.

Among its peers, Burnaby was the worst hospital in the country for such events from 2010 to 2012, doubling the national average.

The report called the findings an “urgent patient-safety concern” and recommended Fraser Health undertake an immediate review of the issue to identify root causes and take “urgent steps” to fix the problem.

Burnaby also performed worse than 97 per cent of its peers across the country for treating patients admitted with fractured hips within 48 hours, a crucial factor in the recovery of elderly patients.

Readmission rates – for patients who’ve been released but have to return to hospital because of complications – were also found to be high in almost all areas, with Burnaby performing worse than 97 per cent of its peers across the country.

The hospital was among four (Surrey Memorial, Royal Columbian and Ridge Meadows were the others) that demonstrated poor performance on multiple areas, and the report recommended Fraser Health should strengthen accountability and site-level operational leadership at those sites.

But Cathie Heritage, the Fraser Health executive director responsible for Burnaby, said she has confidence in the hospital’s operations site director Sheila Finamore, who won an Excellence in B.C. Health Care award from the Health Employers Association of B.C. just last month.

Heritage said that, while she welcomed the Fraser Health review, she is disappointed the figures presented in it don’t reflect improvements the hospital has made under Finamore in the last two years.

She noted the data for nursing-sensitive adverse events was two years old and said Burnaby has reduced its rate by 25 per cent since then.

She was at a loss, however, to explain how the hospital ended up the worst in the country by that indicator in 2010 and 2012.

“If we had known that answer earlier, we never would have landed there,” she said. 

Having reviewed the report, Heritage said she was reassured Burnaby’s leadership was on the right track and the hospital already had action plans in place to deal with the concerns raised.

She also pointed to the gains the local facility has made in its battle against the superbug C. difficile.

Rates of infection at the hospital were close to Fraser Health targets last year after a 40 per cent decrease in infection rates since 2009.

The report called the improvements a “notable achievement.”

“I’m very proud of the work that the staff on the Burnaby site does,” Heritage said, “and I’m extremely proud of their approach to patient care and we absolutely recognize that there is always the possibilities for improvement and we will continue to strive towards those.”

The Fraser Health review was ordered by provincial Health Minister Terry Lake last November in response to budget overruns in the health authority and concerns about patient care.