Quality and Patient Safety
Quality
Quality patient care is the top priority for every member of the NHH team and, as such, we are committed to transparency and continuous improvement. At NHH, our shared purpose of People First shapes our commitment to quality care, service excellence, and, ultimately, providing the best human experience.
NHH is committed to providing quality and safe care to our community. We recognize that this starts with our leadership. Leaders and staff, physicians, midwives, patients, families and caregivers are an integral part of identifying priorities to support quality and safety. Best practice standards and objectives identified from our integrated risk management program informs our quality and safety initiatives.
The Quality and Safety Committee of the Board, NHH leaders, physicians, other health care professionals and patient/family advisors regularly review our progress in meeting these objectives.
At NHH, our shared purpose of People First serves as our ‘infinite’ goal, sitting above our strategic priorities and shaping our commitment to provide the best human experience. Guided by our core values of integrity, quality, respect, compassion and teamwork, and the eight strategic lenses of our Experience Framework (one of which is “Quality and Clinical Excellence”), we are striving, together, to create a culture of hope, trust, belonging and compassion where everyone feels valued, heard and supported.
Our required Quality Improvement Plan (QIP) and integrated patient safety plan is a part of our strategic plan for quality improvement and meets our obligations under the Excellent Care for All Act (ECFFA).
About the ECFAA
The ECFAA puts patients first by ensuring health care providers and leaders are focused and accountable to improving high quality patient care and ensuring the patient experience.
The ECFAA requires that hospitals:
- Have a quality committee of the board.
- Develop and post annual quality improvement plan (QIP).
- Patient relations process and patient declaration of values.
- Staff satisfaction surveys.
Feedback process for patient/family members and caregivers.
Our Quality Improvement Plan (QIP)
The QIP is a meaningful way for NHH to clearly articulate our accountability to our community, patients, and staff by highlighting our improvement goals, initiatives, and how we measure our progress each year.
NHH’s Patient Safety Plan is strategically integrated within our QIP each year. The Patient Safety Plan incorporates the indicators identified within the Safety Dimension of the QIP.
QIP indicators and targets provide a focused approach to Quality and Patient Safety at NHH. The initiatives support our quality and safety goals, including patient safety and engagement, experience, and health equity.
The Quality and Safety Committee of the Board, NHH administration, physicians, other health care professionals and patient/family advisors work together to develop annual QIPs for NHH and monitor progress.
Quality Improvement Plan (QIP) 2025-2026:
Our Past QIP Workplans:
Patient Safety Indicator Reports
NHH routinely reports results about important patient safety indicators.
NHH’s patient safety indicators listed below are reported to the Ontario Ministry of Health and are available to the public via our Patient Safety Indicator report.
NHH’s Patient Safety Indicators and Reporting Frequency:
- Nosocomial Clostridioides difficile (C. Difficile) infection (monthly)
- Central line infections (monthly)
- Ventilator Associated Pneumonia (VAPs) (monthly)
- Hand hygiene compliance (annually)
- MRSA Bacteremia (monthly)
- VRE Bacteremia (monthly)
- Surgical safety checklist compliance (every three months)
Click here for NHH’s latest Patient Safety Indicator Report
Our Performance
NHH takes pride in delivering exceptional patient care, every time for every person. Our human experience definition states that for NHH, the phrase People First speaks to more than delivering exceptional care; it’s about creating an environment where every interaction delivers meaningful value and extends toward a positive relationship with patients, families, staff, providers, volunteers and partners.
Accreditation
Accreditation Canada, a not-for-profit organization that provides an external peer review process to national and international health care organizations, has awarded NHH with “Accredited with Exemplary Standing” status for four years (2022-2026). The Accreditation program involves benchmarking quality-of-care excellence against national standards. You can read the full report and media release to learn more.
For more information on accreditation, visit accreditation.ca.
To provide feedback, visit our Compliments and Concerns page.