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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
In an effort to offer more transparency the Stanton Territorial hospital is releasing a scorecard on its website in the fall.

Stanton Territorial Hospital CEO Kay Lewis says the new scorecard will give the public a flavour for the kind of operation the hospital is running. - Candace Thomson/NNSL photo

Kay Lewis, CEO of the hospital, said scorecards for health organizations are a relatively new movement across Canada.

"It's just another way of trying to be accountable to the public," said Lewis. "Sometimes increasing access to information can increase risk, but it also gives people a sense of security. It's called balanced for a reason."

The scorecard allows the board of management and various departments in the hospital to rate the organization based on five tiers, which match the five goals the hospital has.

The indicators on the card are patient-centered quality care, accountable governance, leadership and financial management, effective partnerships and relationships, quality of work life, and appropriate infrastructures and resources.

"The indicators cover everything from preventative maintenance on equipment, to the impact on scheduling for our speech language pathology programs, to compliance with surgical checklists," said Lewis.

With each indicator there is an action plan which hospital officials will implement should anything show up on the scorecard that the hospital needs to work on. Lewis said the issues would be discussed by a board of directors, before moving to the individual department heads and down through the hospital hierarchy so all bases are covered.

Each different tier also has its own elements. For example, the patient care tier covers patient satisfaction, as well as infection rates and harmful incidents. The quality of work life tier encompasses the hospital's turnover rate, staff satisfaction surveys and vacancy rates.

"Some people call it the 'plan, do, study, act' approach," said Lewis. "It's ongoing improvement of the organization to keep it moving forward."

A large part of the scorecard is understanding there won't always be good reports, said Lewis.

"Hospitals are a high-risk business and there are complaints sometimes, but what matters is how we handle those complaints," she said.

The scorecard will act as an update on various hospital conditions before the annual review, which will provide much more in depth information. Lewis hopes the scorecard will give the public a good flavour of what kind of operation the hospital is running, she said.

"At the end of the day what we want to know, is if you are a patient, would you recommend the hospital to anyone else."

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