President's Corner - Happy New (Fiscal) Year!

Today marks the first day of a new month and the first day of our next fiscal year.

This past year has been a tremendous success: we welcomed a new President & CEO to our hospital, York Central Hospital’s Board of Trustees appointed a new chair and vice-chair and we opened the region’s most advanced Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).

And, we exceeded our fundraising goal for the year thanks to the incredible support from donors like you! Through your generosity, we were able to fund more than $1 million in medical equipment and technology, a newly renovated and expanded NICU and a second Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) Suite. This means York Central’s team of dedicated medical professionals will have the equipment and facilities they require to continue delivering expert and compassionate care to you, the patients.

Although we’re only a few hours into our new fiscal year, I can’t help but get excited about our projects and goals this year. The development of a two-site health care system is moving forward which means we’re one step closer to being able to provide expanded health care services to residents in Southwest York Region and beyond. We’ve have a new list of priority projects to fund this year, including renovating six paediatric rooms and outfitting them with new equipment.

We’re also raising funds to standardize intravenous pumps throughout the hospital.

Currently, the hospital uses eight different infusion pump systems that do not have built-in safety features. The pump selected by the Hospital is the Symbiq Infusion System – one with a near perfect safety rating.

This pump system increases safety for patients by auto-programming medications, preventing human errors.  They are electronically manufactured to detect potential errors, averting mistakes while tracking “near misses” for future improvement.  In addition, since the pumps are programmed to dispense the appropriate dosages, nurses and other staff members have more time to spend with patients, improving the overall quality of care.

Finally, we’ve welcomed a new Director of Major Gifts to our team, Luci Anderson. Luci has leadership experience in both the profit and non-profit sectors, including her most recent employer, Providence Healthcare Foundation, where she was the Director of Major Gifts & Campaigns.

With new leadership and several exciting projects under way to improve care for the people in our community, I’m hopeful, through your support, this year will be our best to date!

Wishing you the best of health,

Bill Leacy

President & CEO