STRATEGIC PRIORITIES 2018-2021 • (@~ SIJOSEPHs HEALTH CARE • • LONDON . ' To: St. Joseph’s Board of Directors From: Roy Butler, President and CEO CARE PARTNERSHIPS '!!ADVOCACY & COLLABORATIONSCIII Date: August 31, 2021 EARNING COMPLETE CONFIDENCE I am honoured to have started this month as President and CEO of St. Joseph’s Health Care London. Although I have been a senior leader at St. Joseph’s for several years, I am intentionally taking time as I move into this role to listen and learn with fresh eyes and ears. Aligned with that, I have completed a SWOT-like analysis with every senior leader – listening to their perspectives on aspirations, strengths, and risks/concerns for their portfolio and for the organization. I had the benefit of spending time with Dr. Gillian Kernaghan in August to ensure a smooth transition and have greatly appreciated Gillian’s commitment to this process. My stakeholder engagement in August has also included meeting with the interim CEO of London Health Sciences Centre, the new Assistant Deputy Minister of Hospitals and Capital Division of the Ministry of Health, Transitional Regional Lead of Ontario Health West, Executive Director of St. Joseph’s Health Care Society, the President as well as Board Chair of the Catholic Health Alliance of Canada, Dean of Western University’s Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, and the President of Western. As we move into September, I will continue my orientation with Chair/Chiefs of our programs, Board Committee Chairs, Fanshawe College, and regional hosptial and community CEOs. I will also be visiting our sites to speak with as many members of our St. Joseph’s family as possible about their aspirations for St. Joseph’s, concerns, and how we continue to build upon our strengths as we transition to a new normal post COVID-19 and beyond. As a Senior Leadership Team, we will begin to identify key milestones for the last two quarters of 2021-2022 and prepare and respond to the fourth wave of the pandemic that is upon us. Similar to previous years and for continuity, this August Board report provides you with only the environmental scan and “St. Joseph’s in the News” to help you stay up to date on health care issues and happenings in the news regionally, provincially, nationally and for St. Joseph’s. Heading into September, I will be reviewing the content and structure of the board report and seeking input to ensure I am providing you with information that meets your needs. You will receive my first full board report in September. I look forward to the discussions, discernment and explorations we will take on together at this remarkable time in health care. Page 1 of 12 Environmental Scan Pandemic leaves Canadians in fear of long-term care: survey Nearly half of Canadians (47 per cent) will do whatever it takes to avoid ending up in a long- term care facility, and to keep close family members out, according to an Angus Reid poll that shows the pandemic has fundamentally fractured the way such facilities are perceived. One-in- five (22 per cent) say they’ll start saving for such a plan, while more than twice that number say they “dread” the thought of living in long-term care (44 per cent). Other findings include: • If the industry is to be improved, three-quarters of Canadians say either significant changes (45 per cent) or a total overhaul (31 per cent) is necessary. • At least three-in-five residents in British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, and Atlantic Canada say that the federal government should be directly involved in creating standards for the industry. • Three-in-five say private care should be minimized or phased out, rising to two-thirds among those 55 years of age and older. • Seven in 10 (72 per cent) say Canada should invest more in homecare, and 55 per cent say they would be willing to pay more in taxes to accomplish it in their own province. Angus Reid Institute, July 26, 2021 Ontario ramping up efforts to reduce surgical wait times The Ontario government is investing up to $324 million in new funding to enable Ontario’s hospitals and community health sector to perform more surgeries, MRI and CT scans and procedures as part of a wider, comprehensive surgical recovery plan to provide patients with the care they need. For hospitals, the recovery plan includes the following: • $300 million from the 2021 Budget dedicated to help the hospital sector recover and perform thousands more surgeries and diagnostic imaging hours, and help reduce wait times • $216 million for hospitals to extend operating room hours into evenings and weekends and perform up to 67,000 additional surgeries on top of the typical volume of 650,000 scheduled surgeries that happen in main operating rooms each year • $35 million for MRI and CT imaging, enabling more than 75,000 additional hours of MRI scanning and more than 60,000 additional hours of CT scanning, on top of the 577,000 hours and 550,000 hours that happen each year, respectively. This represents a 12 per cent overall increase in available hours. • $18 million investment in centralized surgical waitlist management to increase use of electronic referrals and support work to enable efficient tracking of surgical information, making better use of specialist and hospital resources and reducing patient wait times • $1 million for surgical smoothing coaching from an expert team of experienced surgeons and administrators to support knowledge sharing and best practices to optimize the use of operating rooms at key high-volume hospitals • $30 million for the new Surgical Innovation Fund to help hospitals in each region of the province to address barriers and increase their surgical output Ministry of Health, July 28, 2021 Pfizer claims third dose 'strongly' boosts protection against Delta variant A third dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine can "strongly" boost protection against the Delta variant – beyond the protection afforded by the standard two doses, suggests new data released by Pfizer on July 28, 2021. Page 2 of 12 The data suggest that antibody levels against the Delta variant in people ages 18 to 55 who receive a third dose of vaccine are greater than five-fold than following a second dose. Among people ages 65 to 85, the Pfizer data suggest that antibody levels against the Delta variant after receiving a third dose of vaccine are greater than 11-fold than following a second dose. CTV News, July 28, 2021 Incidence of dementia forecast to triple worldwide by 2050 The number of people with dementia is forecast to triple to an estimated 152 million worldwide by 2050, according to new data. To make this prediction, researchers with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington School of Medicine analyzed data from 1999 to 2019 from the Global Burden of Disease study, which is a comprehensive set of health trends estimates worldwide. They also incorporated information on trends in dementia risk factors into the study. The highest increase in prevalence is projected to be in eastern sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, and the Middle East. According to their analysis, the researchers projected increases could largely be attributed to population growth and aging, although they said the relative importance of these two factors varied by world region. CTV News, July 28, 2021 Doctors, nurses groups call for mandatory vaccination of health care workers The Canadian Medical Association (CMA) and the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA) are jointly calling for COVID-19 vaccinations to be made mandatory for health care workers to protect patients and workers while helping to maintain capacity in the health care system. The two organizations have joined a growing number of calls – including that of Ontario Medical Association and the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario – to make vaccines a mandatory condition of employment in the health care sector. "There is significant evidence that vaccines are safe and effective and as health professionals who are leading the vaccination campaigns, it is the right call and an appropriate step," said CMA president Dr. Ann Collins. CBC News, August 3, 2021 Canada's health system ranked second last among 11 countries: report A new report by the Commonwealth Fund has ranked Canada's health system second last, ahead of the United States among high-income countries. The report ranked 11 high-income countries on key health system measures, including equity, access to care, affordability, health- care outcomes, and administrative efficiency. The report found that the top-performing health systems overall are in Norway, the Netherlands, and Australia, while Switzerland, Canada and the U.S. were the countries with the worse health care systems, respectively. However, the report noted that the U.S. performance falls "far below" Switzerland and Canada's despite these countries being ranked directly above it. Page 3 of 12 The countries were ranked by an expert advisory panel using Commonwealth Fund international surveys conducted in each country prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as administrative data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the World Health Organization. The report ranked Canada 10th overall, as well as in two major categories: equity and health care outcomes. The inequities include financial barriers to accessing medical and dental care, medical bill burdens, difficulty obtaining after-hours care, and the use of web portals to facilitate patient engagement. CTV News, August 4, 2021 Ontario releases back-to-school plan Ontario students will return to the classroom full-time in September 2021 with remote learning continuing to be an option, the province confirmed in its official back-to-school strategy.