In Touch newsletter: October 2017

OCTOBER 2017

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INTOUCH

G N VI GI KS AN TH The Family Health Team’s John Giannitsopoulos, social worker, and Cian Knights, community engagement specialist, sort stock in the Patient Comfort Closet at the Sumac Creek Family Health Centre. (Photo by Yuri Markarov, Medical Media Centre)

Clothing our patients in dignity

By Skaidra Puodziunas

Some might take a new pair of pants for granted, but St. Michael’s Family Health Team has found that patients who’ve received brand new items from the team’s Patient Comfort Closet are grateful for the comfort and dignity they provide.

“We’ve created a closet stocked with everyday essentials that our providers can pull from to offer patients in need,” said Cian Knights, the community engagement specialist with the Family Health Team and creator of the closet. “That need can be new shoes for someone who is Printed on 100 per cent recycled paper

vulnerably housed, to a stroller for a new parent who cannot afford one.”

The Patient Comfort Closet is restocked every two months through a partnership with Brands for Canada, a not-for profit organization working to ensure Canadians living below the poverty line have access to proper clothing and other basic essentials. Everyday items such as new clothing, toothbrushes and toothpaste, deodorant, incontinence products and cleaning supplies can come in the delivery truck.

“It’s like a closet of mystery,” said Knights.

“We never know what we’ll get each shipment, but the items are always new and that’s important. It’s dignifying for

our patients to have new items. That’s why we don’t accept or offer gently used or second-hand items.”

Any health-care practitioner with the Family Health Team can access the Patient Comfort Closet to get items patients need.

“The closet has brought instant comfort to our patients,” said John Giannitsopoulos, a social worker. “It allows us to address an immediate concern while we continue supporting our patients’ health and well-being over the long-term through social and economic solutions.”

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OPEN MIKE with

Dr. Arthur Slutsky

Vice-President, Research

Last November St. Michael’s celebrated Research Month for the first time. This November, Research Month will be bigger, broader and, dare I say, even better.

St. Michael’s has a lot to celebrate.

Our researchers have been prolific at securing research funding from grants and industry. Over the summer, St. Michael’s scientists secured more than $30-million in grant funding through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research alone. Between 2011 and 2016, St. Michael’s had the most CIHR salary awards of any research hospital in Canada.

And it’s not just funding agencies that are recognizing St. Michael’s research excellence. On Nov. 21, St. Michael’s Foundation will host its third annual Angels Den, where our scientists and clinicians pitch their innovative research projects to a live audience and compete for funding. The battle for breakthroughs has grown to a nearly

500-person ticketed affair at the Royal Conservatory of Music’s Koerner Hall.

Joe Mimran, the fashion mogul who founded Joe Fresh and is a Dragon on CBC’s Dragons’ Den, joins St. Michael’s as lead judge of the foundation’s flagship research fundraising event.

Such successes are not the result of one person or program. Everyone touched by this institution—staff, physicians, students, volunteers or patients — contributes to our success as an academic hospital. Research Month is an opportunity to pause and thank everyone at St. Michael’s for ensuring that research taking place in the labs and clinics today will contribute to better outcomes for our patients tomorrow.

This month’s tagline is “Our research changes lives.” And “our” means ALL of us.

To say thank you, and to showcase St. Michael’s research, there are a number of unique rounds, lectureships, workshops and networking opportunities taking place throughout the month. We’ve created passports to help you discover the world of research.

The printed passports are available

at the kickoff event and the Health Sciences Library. A full calendar of events is also available on the intranet and the research website (http://bit.ly/ researchmonth). Join us for as many of these events as you can, including: •

In honour of St. Michael’s 125th anniversary, the month will kick off with a presentation on the history of Research at St. Michael’s in the Allan Waters Family Auditorium at 2 p.m. on Nov. 1. At this opening event, you’ll be able to pick up your passport and find out what research-related artifacts we’ll be sealing in a time capsule until 2042.

•

On Nov. 20 from 2 to 4 p.m., there will be free coffee and tea in the Marketeria for people who engage in RCTs (randomized coffee talks).

Be randomly assigned to tables and meet new colleagues from across the hospital who contribute to research.

Thank you for making St. Michael’s the spectacular academic hospital that it is. Celebrate health research and your contribution to it, all November (and year) long.

Comfort Closet story continued from page 1

Since it was piloted in January at the Sumac Creek Health Centre, the closet has been used more than 50 times to help patients meet their basic living needs. The closet has also expanded to the St. James Health Centre and the Health Centre at 410 Sherbourne.

The latter two sites were able to build their own closet through the Dr. Philip Berger Health Advocacy Fund—a fund set up by a grateful donor to support needs within the Family Health Team.

OCT 2017 | IN TOUCH | 2

The name of the Patient Comfort Closet is a nod to the Patient Comfort Fund that was established

by Laurie Malone, former executive director of the Family Health Team. The fund is used to provide specific support for patients in need, while the closet provides more patients with regular support and basic living needs.

Follow St. Michael’s on Twitter: @StMikesHospital

Dr. Gaspard Montandon, a scientist in the Keenan Research Centre for Biomedical Science, says that to reduce opioid overdose deaths, Canadians need to move from reacting to them to preventing them at a cellular level. (Photo by Katie Cooper, Medical Media Centre)

Stemming opioid deaths

By Geoff Koehler

A new researcher with St. Michael’s Keenan Research Centre for Biomedical Science wants to stop the nearly 2,500 opioid-related deaths in Canada every year by making the drugs less deadly.

“Opioid overdose kills by shutting down the brain and the respiratory system, but nobody knows exactly how that happens at a cellular level,” said Dr. Gaspard Montandon, who has a PhD focused on the impact of drugs on breathing. “With a better understanding of what’s going on in the brain during an overdose, I think we may be able to find an antidote that prevents the lethal side-effects of opioids while preserving their painkiller effects.”

Dr. Montandon said that naloxone— the life-saving drug given to people who are having an opioid overdose—is an effective therapy that should be widely available and used, however, it’s not able to prevent opioid overdose. It can be given only after an overdose has happened.

His search for an antidote to opioid overdose has led Dr. Montandon to identify proteins in the brain that may be potential therapeutic targets. By collaborating with several researchers at the hospital, including Dr. Xiao-Yan Wen of the Zebrafish Centre for Advanced Drug Discovery, Dr. Montandon is building a platform to identify the genes responsible for people’s life-threatening response to opioids. He plans to test an array of drugs in the lab that could prevent the respiratory depression that shuts down the brain and breathing in overdoses.

“If we discover the genes responsible for causing respiratory depression when met with opioids, we’ll have great insights into which proteins play a role in making opioid overdose deadly,” said Dr. Montandon. “We could then make opioid therapy safer by developing drugs that change the way our brain’s breathing circuitry responds to opioids and hopefully prevent these drugs from shutting down the brain and breathing.”

Over the last 25 years, deaths related to opioid prescriptions in Ontario have nearly quadrupled. Dr. Montandon said his quest is to dramatically reduce that trend.

Tara Gomes, a scientist with St. Michael’s Ontario Drug Policy Research Network, recently published research showing the scale of the opioid epidemic in Ontario. She showed that two people die each day in Ontario due to opioid overdoses.

OCT 2017 | IN TOUCH | 3

Thank you WE WISH YOU A

WONDERFUL

Alayne Metrick volunteers in an eye clinic during the Philippines Mission in 2009.

Greeting Li Ka-shing at the opening of the Li Ka Shing Knowle Touring the Keenan Research Centre under construction with Barbara and the late Patrick Keenan.

Executive Vice President John King, tournament co-chair John Manning, Dr. Bob Howard, Alayne and tournament co-chair Mike Thompson celebrate another successful year for the Urban Angel Golf Classic in 2011.

OCT 2017 | IN TOUCH | 4

Alayne RETIREMENT

edge Institute in 2011.

Alayne Metrick at the 2007 golf tournament.

22 Years

BIG Accomplishments $500 million+ raised 4 Major Capital Campaigns 3 Major Buildings: The Keenan Research Centre, the Li Ka Shing International Healthcare Education Centre and the Peter Gilgan Patient Care Tower.

23 Golf Tournaments - 11 netting over $1 MILLION

7 Galas 24 Chairs Alayne celebrates with hospital leaders and board member in 2009.

OCT 2017 | IN TOUCH | 5

In November 2016, Teresa Tiano (left), Katy Kosyachkova (middle) and Dr. Christine Brezden-Masley spoke at an event during Stomach Cancer Awareness Month to a group of researchers about stomach cancer, with the goal of inspiring pharmaceutical researchers to continue their important work in finding treatment options for this disease. This year, My Gut Feeling is hosting its first Stomach Cancer Conference on Nov. 25 at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, bringing together health-care providers, researchers, patients, survivors and caregivers.

(Photo courtesy of Teresa Tiano)

Patients create Canada’s first stomach cancer support group

By Evelyne Jhung

When Katy Kosyachkova, then 21, was being treated for stomach cancer in 2011, she was desperate for support.

Feeling, the first non-profit organization in Canada dedicated solely to stomach cancer, and held its inaugural monthly Stomach Cancer Support Group meeting at St. Michael’s one year ago.

“I’m so proud and humbled that our “I literally had no one to turn to. It was patients have taken this forward and the scariest experience of my life and brought it to life,” said Dr. BrezdenI felt so isolated. That’s why I posted Masley. on an online forum even though I’m a With only 3,500 cases per year in Canada private person,” said Kosyachkova. in 2016, stomach cancer is considered Teresa Tiano, a fellow stomach cancer an “orphan cancer.” In contrast, there survivor, responded to her online post. are approximately 25,000 cases of breast cancer per year. Many of these patients “Meeting Katy was such a blessing. I are treated at St. Michael’s – as a sole felt incredibly alone in this journey. oncologist, Dr. Brezden-Masley sees one We connected and I was able to talk to her about things nobody else could of the largest number of patients with stomach cancer. understand because Katy had already been through treatment by the time I was starting mine,” said Tiano.

After the two connected, they decided to create their own support group.

With the help of Tiano’s oncologist, St. Michael’s Dr. Christine BrezdenMasley, they co-founded My Gut OCT 2017 | IN TOUCH | 6

The support group has about 15 regular attendees and meets once a month at St. Michael’s, with callers from the NWT, Alberta, Halifax, even California, as well as from within the hospital.

“The virtual aspect of this group is important. Stomach cancer is extremely

aggressive and many are wheelchairbound during treatment. It’s hard to get out of bed to come to a meeting,” said Kosyachkova.

The support group also offers oneon-one support to its members, with Tiano and Kosyachkova visiting or checking in by phone every week or so.

“Starting My Gut Feeling gave me purpose, something positive to focus on. I want to offer hope to others going through this and help them feel less lonely, even it’s simply holding their hand and just being there for them,” said Tiano.

If you know of a patient, survivor or caregiver looking for support, let them know about @mygutfeeling1 on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

New software has respirologists breathing easy

Dr. Marie Faughnan and Eva Leek, a respiratory therapist, led the team that brought Influx reporting software to the respirology unit.

(Photo by Yuri Markarov, Medical Media Centre)

By Kelly O’Brien

A respirology team is using new software to improve workflow and reduce errors in diagnostic reporting in the Pulmonary Function Lab. The software, developed by Influx Workflow Solutions, extracts patient data from a range of diagnostic devices and consolidates multiple reports in a single reporting software. The report can then be viewed quickly and easily by respirologists and other caregivers.

Prior to installing the software, a number of factors disrupted the workflow, according to Dr. Marie Faughnan, a respirologist and director of the Pulmonary Function Lab. “In short, we did not have a very efficient setup,” she said.

The Pulmonary Function Lab does a wide range of diagnostic tests and each machine produces a different report. With Influx, physicians and staff can access all of a patient’s reports, instead of collecting separate reports from each machine.

“Tests include spirometry, lung volumes, lung diffusing capacity, airway resistance and exercise oximetry among others,” said Eva Leek, a respiratory therapist. “Now, we can gather all reports from just one workspace and see a complete view of the patient’s respiratory status.”

St. Michael’s is also a teaching hospital, so there are extra steps in the reporting process to accommodate training responsibilities.

The Pulmonary Function Lab at St. Michael’s is one of largest and busiest in Toronto.

“A report is generated by the Pulmonary Function Lab, goes to the resident and then on to the respirologist for review and a teaching-moment discussion,” said Dr. Faughnan.

This made for a workflow that was slow and prone to error.

While preliminary reports might be in clinical hands within a day, full diagnostic reports sent back to referring physicians could take a week or more to produce.

The team needed a system that was user-friendly, fast and made reports easy to interpret and integrate with the patient’s electronic health record, said Dr. Faughnan.

The software was integrated with the hospital’s existing cardiology PACS system for immediate physician reporting.

The new system eliminates time-consuming steps in the reporting process, automates old paper-based systems and reduces the potential for errors.

Preliminary respiratory reports now are available in patients’ electronic charts almost immediately after being written. Final reports are not far behind, often showing up the same day.

“It did take us longer than expected, but what got us through it was the effort all the people at the hospital put into this,” said Leek. “We kept working together over the past year to get us where we are today.”

OCT 2017 | IN TOUCH | 7

Q&A

By Geoff Koehler (Photo by Yuri Markarov, Medical Media Centre)

ELIANE STOCKLER-LEITE REGISTERED NURSE AND MEMBER OF CRITICAL CARE RESPONSE TEAM

Q. What is the Critical Care Response Team?

The CCRT is a group of critical care specialists—nurses, respiratory therapists and doctors—who are available 24-7 to provide critical care support outside of the intensive care units. We’re a safety net for patients whose condition might be getting worse. We’re also ready to respond when someone on the unit has a gut feeling and would simply like a second set of eyes or some education.

Q. How does the CCRT work with an inpatient unit?

Typically, an inpatient unit’s care team will call Locating for support. The CCRT will rush to the bedside, working with the primary nurse and the most responsible physician to identify the patient’s issue. The CCRT also takes parts in rounds on units and does followup with patients who were recently discharged from one of the ICUs. On these occasions, the CCRT might identify a patient on the unit who needs their support. In either case, the unit’s staff knows the patient best and is working with us during our consult. Together, we assess the patient and quickly decide how to best treat the patient— whether on the unit or in the ICU.

Q. Are there ever any false alarms?

No. There’s no such thing as a false alarm with CCRT. Any

INTOUCH

OCTOBER 2017

In Touch is an employee newsletter published by Communications and Public Affairs.

Please send story ideas to In Touch editor Leslie Shepherd at shepherdl@smh.ca.

Design by Marcelo Silles, Medical Media Centre

time we, as a hospital, provide the best care possible, it’s a good day. If anyone is concerned, there’s reason for the CCRT to be involved. It’s better for someone to call when they have a gut feeling, than to wait until a situation becomes an emergency.

Q. What do you love about being on this team?

I have had numerous opportunities to not only share my expertise in critical care but also to learn from my expert colleagues from different specialties, from how to position an orthopedic patient after surgery, to how calm down an extremely anxious patient under psychiatric care, to what to look for after a patient has received chemo. I am constantly learning and building relationships.

I’ve worked on a busy acute care unit before. I know that staff give 100 per cent. The CCRT can help share that load.

Responding to a call is an opportunity to care for patients, grow relationships and share the burden. I’d say that’s a win for the ward, for the CCRT and especially for the patient.

Q. After a day responding to calls, how do you kick back ?

I’m a runner. Now I don’t run the same day as my shift, but definitely after I’ve gotten some sleep. Running helps put stressful days into perspective. I’ve done seven half-marathons. At work or on the trail, I always try my hardest and go the distance.