WHGH Staff honoured for outstanding service during pandemic

February 25, 2022

West Haldimand General Hospital (WHGH) is pleased to announce this year’s winning team and individual for the Quality Award of Excellence, which honours outstanding service.

Teresa Hill, an employee at WHGH for nearly 26 years, was named this year’s recipient of the Quality Award.

“The Quality Award of Excellence is given each year to a recipient who demonstrates passion and commitment for improving the quality of care at our hospital. This person lives the values of our organization in ways that show empathy, safety, efficiency, and overall experience. She also supports multiple fundraising activities with such passion and excitement that people cannot help to gravitate toward her,” said Kim Mullins, Interim President, and CEO.

Teresa plays a vital role in the hospital’s Finance Department and works as a payroll administrator. Payroll administrators, like Teresa, help employees who experience problems with their pay or need to make a change, whether it’s a new address or an adjustment to their withholdings. They also educate staff about their salary and benefits and any updates to the payment process, among other things.

“Firstly, I am grateful and it’s a great honour to receive this award. I know I get a lot of thank you’s throughout the day, which means to world to me. I will say, when Kim Mullins started reading the words from my fellow co-workers, it hit me harder than I thought it would. I am truly the lucky one to have so many amazing co-workers that took their time to write kind words about me for this award,” said Teresa.

At the award ceremony, Teresa dedicated the award to the entire team at WHGH – something she felt was extremely important to do.
“I truly feel that this is a team award for me. You may not know that I have a lot of help from individuals at WHGH. I appreciate all of their hard work that makes my job easier. They are all truly amazing at what they do.”

The Quality Award of Excellence is presented annually to an outstanding employee or a team that shows passion and commitment to improving the quality of care, leads by example, and inspires others. The Award nominees and winners are also voted entirely by their peers.
West Haldimand General Hospital’s Lab team was the 2022 group recipient of the Quality Award. The team was honoured for their efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic that ensured patients received quality and timely care.

“The recipient of the group award for quality goes to a team who truly defines what it means to be a team. Despite all of the challenges of the pandemic, this team works hard to continually improve their services that ensure that our patients receive excellent patient care. The team advocated for updated equipment and railed together to provide education and support for our clinical departments. They are described as a dedicated group of individuals who provide excellent patient care, treat every patient and staff member with respect, and live our hospital values in everything they do,” said Mullins.

Despite all of the challenges presented by COVID-19, the lab was able to successfully complete their Laboratory Accreditation from Accreditation Canada Diagnostics in 2020 meeting 97% of the requirements. Accreditation is a mark of excellence acknowledged around the world.

To receive accreditation, a full assessment was conducted by three members of Accreditation Canada Diagnostics from November 16 to 17. The accreditation certification spans a four-year period.

“It is definitely an honor to be recognized for the work that we do. The lab has always been one of the departments that are in the background. Many people in the public don’t know what a Medical Technologist is, or what we do. This has been a difficult year for everyone in health care and I feel like every department here at WHGH has been going above and beyond to continue to provide the best care that they can. That makes this award that much more meaningful for us,” said Patty McGillis, Laboratory Manager at WHGH.

WHGH’s Laboratory is a 12-member team, which includes nine technologists and three technicians. The hospital’s lab completed over 59,000 tests in 2021, however, this does not include the number of samples that the lab processed for referred out testing like COVID swabs.

“Our greatest achievement is that we managed to do all of this and still remain a very close group that support each other and do what we can to ensure that we are providing timely and accurate test results to our physicians,” said McGillis.

Meanwhile, a total of 33 employees were honoured for their time spent at the hospital, adding up to nearly 440 years of service. Nine of the employees were recognized for between 20 and 35 years of employment.