Sault Area Hospital could soon be getting a green light to provide long-awaited and life-saving angioplasty on site.
"We have continued to work with the Cardiac Care Network on our business case to provide cardiac angioplasty services. Discussions continue to be very positive," said hospital Chief Executive Officer Ron Gagnon in his written report to hospital board of directors on Monday evening.
Angioplasty is a procedure to widen narrowed or obstructed arteries.
Currently, patients must be airlifted to other facilities, most often in Sudbury, for the procedure and those patients' health is often precarious while they are preparing for and being transported.
SAH being authorized by the Cardiac Care Network to provide angioplasty on site would mean patients who need angioplasty would not have to travel to other healthcare facilities in other communities to have the procedure done.
Also discussed at Monday's Board of Directors' meeting was the issue of patient satisfaction at Sault Area Hospital.
Sault Area Hospital is aiming to increase the number of patients who, in surveys, describe their experience at SAH as 'excellent.'
"100 percent is the ultimate target…right now, the reality is we're sitting at just around 44 percent of the time people telling us we're 'excellent,'" said Ron Gagnon, SAH president and CEO, speaking to reporters after Monday's SAH board of directors meeting.
"We want to move that to 47 percent this year (2015-2016) which would put us among some of the best in the province."
"We want to have very aggressive but very realistic targets," Gagnon said.
The board approved those targets as laid out by Gagnon and SAH administration, with the exception of directors Jim Boniferro, Mario Turco and Bill Kerr.
Boniferro urged Gagnon "not to let being good get in the way of being great."
Gagnon's comments to reporters came after delivering a lengthy presentation to the board, including a review of the province's Excellent Care for All Act, a SAH Strategic Plan overview and a discussion of SAH operational targets and its Quality Improvement Plan.
Gagnon pointed out the Excellent Care for All Act requires hospitals to engage patients and their caregivers in a new patient relations process and development of quality improvement plans.
Gagnon told the board SAH put these measures into place before legislation even required it to do so.
The hospital's Strategic Plan spans the years 2015 to 2020.
Gagnon said key pillars in the Strategic Plan include making SAH a senior friendly hospital, serving an aging demographic in many ways, right down to a plan to make the font size larger on SAH signage in order for senior patients to read them easier, providing more care at home for patients of all ages, and addressing the ongoing need for Alternate Level of Care (ALC) beds.
Director Bill Kerr also informed the board a fundraising initiative, led by the Sault Area Hospital Volunteer Association (SAHVA), will get underway to raise $200,000 toward the purchase of a new CT Scanner for SAH.
Kerr said the goal is to raise that amount over three years, but is confident of reaching that goal in two years.
SAHVA regularly raises funds to purchase capital equipment for SAH and dedicates many thousands of hours to help out at SAH.