Best Practices Review: Fraser Health Authority, Abbottsford, British Columbia

As part of the planning process to redevelop the Matsqui Sumas Hospital and build a new Eastern Fraser Valley Cancer Centre, Agnew Peckham conducted a clinical best practices review. It included

• a best practice review for the 17 clinical programs, based on clinical utilization and outcomes, consumer satisfaction, resource use, system integration and change
• a clinical master plan, which identified the essential and desirable physical relationships within and between programs and departments
• a checklist {based on the work of A. Donabedian and the Hospital Report Card (Ontario, 2001)} to define a best practice

The clinical best practice review focused on processes for the delivery of care and services, rather than evidence based regimes of care (e.g., use of certain medications to treat specific illnesses). The emphasis was on improving or maintaining the quality and accessibility of care and patient satisfaction, in the most efficient manner.

To ensure a comprehensive review, the Project Steering Committee directed that recommended best practices

• respond to a variety of factors related to quality care and effective resource use, and reflect the quality dimensions and descriptors used by the Canadian Council on Health Services Accreditation
• reflect a significant component/aspect of a program to ensure that the best practice findings may be applied to other comparable programs in the region/province. That is, potential best practices need to focus on components of a program that may relate to
  • high volume of patients served by the program
  • high risk, or a potential high risk area within the program
  • high cost area within the program
  • quality outcomes

Value to Client

The value to our client in identifying clinical best practices for each program was threefold

• to ensure that the Hospital and Cancer Centre facilities were being planned using contemporary and future directions for health service delivery
• to provide a base for ongoing clinical program development through the identification of best practices that would improve clinical and/or operational and resource outcomes
• to allow other clinical programs in the Fraser Health Authority and province to replicate the identified best practices

Also, through the continued use of the checklist, new services can continue to be evaluated against best practice criteria.

Relevance for Other Planning

This project was tailored to the specific requirements of the client; a particular strength of Agnew Peckham. The research conducted for this project also strengthened our information base and confirmed that the planning assumptions and concepts we use regularly within our projects are, in fact, considered best practices within the health care industry.

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