Local CHIRPP data key to successful collaborations

Local CHIRPP data key to successful collaborations

by Dr. William Mounstephen, CHIRPP Director, and
Shirley Yee, CHIRPP Coordinator
Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto

The Atrium at the HSC

In its 125-year history, Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children (HSC) has evolved from a six-room house into a complex of buildings covering an entire city block. Throughout this metamorphosis, HSC has been at the forefront of excellence in Canadian pediatric health care, research and teaching. This quality is evident in a truly remarkable list of achievements. The staff of HSC were instrumental in the fight for pasteurization of milk in Canada and set up the country's first plant in 1908. Nutritional research at the Hospital led to the eventual development of the precooked baby cereal known as Pablum. The Hospital has pioneered many renowned surgical procedures and, in the 1960s, opened one of the first intensive care units in North America dedicated to critically-ill premature and newborn babies. More recently, HSC researchers led the way in mapping genes responsible for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and Cystic Fibrosis.

The HSC's Emergency Department has kept pace with the rapid transformations occurring throughout the hospital. Sick Kids, as it is affectionately known, was among the first hospitals to participate in the Canadian Hospital Injury Reporting and Prevention Program (CHIRPP). Not only does the hospital serve as the primary care hospital for the downtown pediatric population, but it also serves as the tertiary/quaternary referral centre for the Greater Toronto Area and, indeed, for the whole province of Ontario.

The CHIRPP Director at HSC, Dr. William Mounstephen, estimates that approximately 47,000 to 50,000 patients are seen at the Emergency Department in a year. Roughly 20% of these visits are injury-related, with the majority of injuries occurring between June and September.

Dr. Mounstephen explains that the numbers and types of injuries may be different from other CHIRPP centres. The reason for this is twofold: first, HSC is not the only emergency department in the city that treats pediatric patients and second, the hospital sees more referrals than other centres, perhaps due to the high number of special facilities housed there.

The collection of injury data at HSC is a challenge as there is such linguistic diversity in Toronto's multi-cultural population. Fifteen to twenty percent of the city's inhabitants cannot communicate effectively in written or spoken English. To assist in collecting data, the Hospital relies on an ATT telephone interpreting service. Such special services combined with cooperation from the Emergency Department and other Hospital staff mean that CHIRPP questionnaires are completed on 95% of patients.

Together, Dr. Mounstephen and the CHIRPP Coordinator, Ms. Shirley Yee, enthusiastically promote the use of local CHIRPP data, both inside the HSC and outside, among Toronto's injury-prevention community. They have been effective in their efforts, as requests for local CHIRPP data have come from varied and numerous sources. HSC doctors often request data for research into head injuries, wrist fractures, lacerations, etc. Public schools request information on injuries such as those related to playground equipment, to include in awareness programs. These are just two of the many!

Sometimes, the CHIRPP program is used to identify subjects or provide injury data to support research studies. Such is the case with the HSC Centre for Health Information and Promotion. The Centre is conducting a study of the use of restraints in childhood motor vehicle collisions. In fact, the use of local CHIRPP data has given rise to a number of successful collaborations. For instance, CHIRPP data were also used by such community-based groups as Safe Kids in their campaign for safe playgrounds, CanRoll Canada to promote safe roller-blading practices, the Scarborough Health Unit in their work on injuries in the home, and the East York Health Unit in developing their Playground Safety Needs Assessment Book.

As for the future, the CHIRPP Director and Coordinator hope to build on past successes to promote the use of local CHIRPP data and expand their network of collaborating partners. Future projects will include the Safety Intervention Project, whereby the HSC Poison Information Centre, the Centre for Health Information and Promotion and two emergency room doctors will investigate effective ways of teaching poison prevention to parents. After gathering CHIRPP data for one more winter, the HSC Trauma Program and Diagnostic Imaging Department hope to partner with Toronto's Recreation and Parks Department to pilot a project promoting safe tobogganing. CHIRPP at HSC will also work in conjunction with the Toronto Humane Society to develop a dog bite prevention fact sheet and poster using data collected from the CHIRPP Dog Bite Study. And in conjunction with Head Start Technologies, CHIRPP at HSC is tracking bike-related injuries for an upcoming mail-out campaign targeting patients who were not wearing helmets at the time of a bicycle injury (whether their injury was head-related or not).

These and other proactive approaches to injury prevention mean that CHIRPP will continue to contribute to the Hospital's future record of excellence in serving the community.

For further information about CHIRPP in the Toronto area, contact Ms. Shirley Yee, CHIRPP Coordinator at (416) 813-7836.


	Last Updated: 2001-02-16		Important Notices