Unlocking potential: Decision Support team helps shape the future of kids’ health care
Hamilton Health Sciences’ (HHS) McMaster Children’s Hospital (MCH) and Ron Joyce Children’s Health Centre (RJCHC) have experienced significant growth over the past year, thanks to a historic government investment of over $48 million as part of Growing MCH.
With such a large investment, how did we make the best use of the money? It was a group effort that involved MCH leadership, clinical experts across program areas, and the support of Decision Support and Finance team experts to make decisions focused on growing spaces, staff, and services, reducing wait times, and improving access to critical care for our patients and their families.
The Decision Support team provides insights into patient volumes, in partnership with their Planning & Analysis team counterparts who provide the financial insights, to support data-driven decisions on how to best implement new funding, such as the 24+ pediatric programs and services that were identified for enhancement through this investment – the largest in MCH’s history.
Behind the scenes, there are many people making the growth of the hospital possible, including HHS’ Decision Support team, a division of the finance department. This diverse team of data experts provide expertise and data quality oversight to prepare and submit mandated patient volume reporting to the province. This knowledge is leveraged by Decision Support staff to contribute to corporate budgeting, volume trending and forecasting, as well as clinical program accreditation, audits and business case development.
Decision Support drives improvements
In summer of 2023, MCH programs and clinics submitted a “wish list” describing how they could increase access to care and enhance quality of care. Resources were allocated to services based on their ability to deliver on these items, taking into account current demand, waiting lists, and projected volumes.
Decision Support was essential in enabling the areas of care to analyze program volumes, to support data-driven decision-making on where to focus the funding to address gaps in care, and measure impact and growth. This work has been essential to the successful growth of MCH over the last year.
“Patient volume and activity data plays an integral part of the decision making and funding allocation process at HHS.”
Sara Zammit, manager of Decision Support
“Patient volume and activity data plays an integral part of the decision making and funding allocation process at HHS. We supply detailed activity data to the clinical programs to determine where the demand for services are, where to allocate resources effectively, and measure the performance and outcomes of increased funding post implementation,” says Sara Zammit, Decision Support manager.
“With this large infusion of funding for the pediatric programs at MCH, it was essential for our team to collaborate closely with the clinical teams to make informed decisions. This teamwork will ultimately enhance care for the pediatric population both in our community and the surrounding regions.”
Early outcomes are impressive
From April 2023 to March 2024, almost 80,000 pediatric patients visited MCH.
More than 300 new staff joined the MCH team to support the growth of programs and additional patient visits. Programs were able to identify the critical gaps on their team structures and fill those roles, ultimately providing patients with more expert care.
The clinics were also able to implement some new and innovative ideas that were projected to improve service delivery at the hospital. For example, some clinics increased hours with an extended hours pilot. Almost 900 families had more flexibility in accessing clinics after regular business hours. MCH also implemented a pediatric Same Day Overnight service, which helped over 300 children and youth recover and get home faster after their surgeries.
Ambulatory clinics are another great example
MCH’s outpatient clinics in particular saw 4,000 more patients than the previous year. These are patients visiting clinics such as neonatal, chronic pain, orthopedics, cardiology, oncology, mental health, and many more for their scheduled appointments.
“Our ambulatory clinics were able to see 14% more patients than last year.”
Karen Margallo, director of child and youth ambulatory services at MCH
“Our ambulatory clinics were able to see 14% more patients than last year,” says Karen Margallo, director of child and youth ambulatory services at MCH. “That’s over 4,000 kids who have been waiting to get access to services they need.”
This year, MCH predicts 16,000 more visits to ambulatory clinics, or 120,394 projected total clinic visits. This is an increase of 16% from last year and 33% from two years ago.
Our pediatric oncology treatment clinic saw the greatest increase in patients of all ambulatory clinics, at 28% year over year.
Access to data is essential to running a hospital
It wouldn’t have been possible to see these impressive early results without the help of the data team.
Having access to quality data is essential to running a hospital. The team provides information to support planning, identify gaps and opportunities, forecast patient volumes and budget, report on metrics for the hospital and the ministry, and many other critical functions.
“With the right funding and insights, we’ll be able to better serve these patients and their families.”
Jennifer Southwell, decision support advisor
Jennifer Southwell is an HHS Decision Support Advisor who supports ambulatory clinics at MCH. She helps teams uncover the potential impact of additional resources and how that would translate into patient volumes. For example, she can calculate how many patients a nurse practitioner sees in a month and then how many additional patients could be seen if they hired additional team members.
“I really enjoy playing around with data and working with different complex data sets,” says Southwell. “When you think of ambulatory clinics, you have metrics like visits, unique clients, referrals, wait lists, wait times – and turning all of that different data into something that is actually meaningful and helpful with those decision processes is invaluable.”
Decision Support’s contributions will continue to improve the hospital and provide data-driven care for patients and families for years to come.
“As time goes on, we’re still seeing an increase in patient volumes,” says Southwell, “and with the right funding and insights, we’ll be able to better serve these patients and their families.”
