Alexandra Marine & General Hospital

Description

Hospital Profile
The Alexandra Marine and General Hospital AMGH provides health care services in Huron County to the community of Goderich and several surrounding municipalities representing a catchment area of approximately of 25000 people

The AMGH is a full service community hospital providing oncall coverage for internal medicine general surgery diagnostic imaging anaesthesia and obstetrics In addition the Emergency Department has a physician on duty twentyfour hours a day seven days per week AMGH is the largest provider of hospital services in Huron County which includes the delivery of primary care a range of secondary level acute and complex continuing care to its broad catchment population

The Hospital is an active treatment facility operated under the direction of a twelve member Board of Directors AMGH currently operates fiftyfour 54 beds providing acute longterm psychiatric emergency and ambulatory care and is operating under a threeyear accreditation award granted in 2008 It is a Schedule I facility with a twenty bed inpatient psychiatric unit that provides care for all of Huron County as well as providing services for some bordering communities in Bruce Grey and Perth Counties The Hospital also offers fulltime community psychiatric outpatientday care facilities for the Towns of Goderich Clinton Seaforth and Wingham In addition to these community programs the Hospital is the sponsor for the Regional Intensive Case Management program serving mentally ill patients throughout Huron and Perth Counties

Medical practitioners on active staff include a general surgeon two psychiatrists one internist one OBGYN and nine family doctors Two general practitioner anaesthetists provide anaesthesia coverage These physicians supported by visiting specialists primarily from London and Stratford provide services for a wide range of outpatient clinics including gastroenterology general surgery gerontology gynaecology internal medicinecardiology neurology obstetrics orthopaedics paediatrics and respirologyallergy Two general practitioner obstetricians provide obstetrical service

Other community services provided at AMGH include cardiology investigations a wide range of diagnostic imaging procedures laboratory diabetic education nutrition occupational therapy physiotherapy speech and language pathology pulmonary function testing Holter monitoring stress testing ECG and social work An active ambulatory care program is maintained and includes day surgery and outpatient paediatrics Those patients in need of more specialized care and treatment are primarily referred to the tertiary care facilities in London

The AMGH is proud to be a part of the Southwestern Ontario PACS initiative picture archiving and communication system which includes a total of 18 separate hospital sites that enables the sharing of diagnostic images between primary secondary and tertiary care hospitals which are linked to this network that enables the sharing AMGHs radiology department is well equipped with current diagnostic equipment including xray fluoroscopy ultrasound and mammography The AMGH radiology department is an actively participating member of Cancer Cares Ontario Breast Screening Program

The diagnostic imaging service offers onsite radiology mammography fluoroscopy and ultrasound for inpatients and outpatients London Xray Associates provides radiologist support both on site and remotely The AMGH has received approval for a CT scanner which will be operational by Fall 2008 Currently patients requiring access to a CT scan travel to Walkerton Stratford or London

The Hospital is intent on bringing services as close to home as possible for the people it serves During the Strategic Planning process undertaken in 2007 participants in the Focus Groups identified the growing range of available and accessible services as an important strength of the Hospital and one of which the Hospital staff and community members are very proud

The Board at Alexandra Marine and General Hospital is committed to patient safety and in fostering a safe environment for patients and their families In the interest of maintaining its high quality of care and its practice of continuous improvement the Board wants unsafe conditions and practices eliminated To that end the Board has identified Patient Safety as one of its Strategic Directions with Objectives and an Action Plan to ensure its implementation

AMGH is a fully accredited hospital with the Canadian Council on Health Services Accreditation which is the leader in raising the bar for quality in health Their Mission is to drive quality in health services through accreditation They help organizations across Canadaand internationally examine and improve the quality of service they provide to their patients and clients AMGH strives to continually improve by participating in the Accreditation process and by meeting the identified standards and criteria and then in recognition receive the CCHSAs highest award The AMGH is scheduled for accreditation October 2224 2007

The hospital employs approximately 250 staff part and fulltime and has an operating budget of approximately 195 million