Survey says: Orillia Hospital 'top place to practice'

Orillia Packet & Times -

Orillia Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital (OSMH) is getting top marks from its doctors.

The hospital was the highest-ranked facility in the Place to Practice category in a survey conducted by National Research Corporation Canada (NRCC).

The survey was conducted between July 2012 and June 2014, exploring the employee and physician experience at 24 hospitals in Ontario. The survey tools were designed to capture employee and physician perceptions of the most important aspects of their work environment, the survey’s introduction stated.

OSMH placed at the top of the Place to Practice category with a positive score of 96.2%. It was one of 10 categories physicians were asked about. Others included engagement, practice environment and patient care.

The only other category with a higher positive score was infection control; Barrie’s Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre scored 97.9%.

Nancy Merrow, OSMH chief of staff, noted the survey is an arm’s-length, independent entity that confirms what the hospital and its staff already knew — “that OSMH is a great place to practise medicine and Orillia is a great community to live,”

“What physicians value at OSMH is the variety of work they can do and the complexity of work they can do and the lifestyle that’s available to them and their families by being in such a beautiful part of Ontario,” Merrow said.

Not only is Orillia an unique community, but the hospital itself is an unique entity. The city’s size dictates a smaller hospital, but the large catchment area has created the need for the regional health centre that has sprung up on Colborne Street.

Those two forms of health care colliding has created a situation that allows for physicians to be both challenged and supported by the community and their peers, Merrow said.

“It adds depth and it adds support,” she said. “For the specialists, it adds depth to what they can do in their scope of practice. For the family physicians, it provides support. On both ends, it adds value to their practice to have a mix of local core services and regional complex services.”

“I think that’s part of what came through in the survey,” added Pat Campbell, OSMH president and CEO, “the idea that they could choose to become engaged in different kinds of services at different levels of complexity and that could help fit with their career goals, with their learning ambitions.”

The information provided to the hospital through the survey will be used by the hospital to improve how it interacts with its credentialled staff, such as the doctors, nurse practitioners and midwives.

“We use the survey as a communication tool with our credentialled staff,” Merrow said. “It’s useful for us as a platform: This is what we’re doing well; this is what we’d like to do better.”

The next survey by NRCC will be conducted beginning in 2016. In the interim, Campbell and Merrow said they will informally survey credentialled staff from time to time to ensure no major issues are forming at the hospital.