Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital Foundation
Message from Tracey Bailey, President & CEO
SUMMER 2012
No more chasing pain
I am truly honoured to be the President & CEO of Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital Foundation. Together, you and I are embarking on an extraordinary journey that has the potential to change the world. As a donor, you are an important member of the Holland Bloorview family. I hope you will feel free to contact me at any time, or better still, come by for a visit so that I may show you what your gift is making possible. It’s a great time to be part of the family. We are launching a Halloween program called Change for Kids. We think it will be a new tradition that Canadian families everywhere will get behind. Be the first on your street to embrace Change for Kids and join us for fun family events to get into the spirit of Halloween. Trust me when I say, Halloween will never be the same again. Please see inside for more details. Thank you for everything you are doing to help our kids lead unlimited lives.
Thomas will never forget his first weekend home for a visit while he was an inpatient at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital. He put off taking his pain medication until the pain became unbearable. “It ended up being a nightmare,” he said. The nurses worked with Thomas to develop strategies to anticipate his pain so he was no longer chasing it. Thomas is part of a Holland Bloorview success story. Several years ago, clinicians knew that they
could do more to address acute pain in children under their care. With the help of donor funding, Nick Joachimides, who is a nurse and Patient Safety Manager at Holland Bloorview, led an interprofessional team of clinicians, therapists, physicians and child life specialists to develop and implement an evidence-based pain policy. When Nick and his team began this journey in 2009, the peer-reviewed literature confirmed what they already knew. N O LIMITS — S um m er 2012