Safety is fundamental for staff, patients and families at CHEO. Children and youth come to CHEO in times of crisis. When their emotions escalate to violence, their protection, and the protection of staff, is vitally important.

With donor support, CHEO’s Mental Health Department has deployed a full roll out of Safety Pods around the hospital. Over 200 staff have been trained in Safety Pod use, including frontline, security and extended care teams. This critical program will grow throughout 2023 with the arrival of several more pods in CHEO’s Oncology and Medical Day Unit.

Safety Pods are a piece of bean bag equipment that have been designed for physical intervention in cases where a patient has become physically violent. They provide the best chance at de-escalation in the moment through therapeutic verbal intervention and safe use of restraint. During an incident where restraint techniques are needed, the Safety Pod allows a patient to be held in a seated position which allows for physical support to the head and neck. A Safety Pod can be used anywhere, so patients don’t need to be moved against their will and offer a more dignified way of supporting patients by reducing the need to apply direct pressure on limbs, assist in nasogastric feeding, and administration of injections and blood sampling while providing a less frightening method of restraint.

Thanks to community generosity, CHEO was the first hospital in North America to deploy Safety Pods in pediatric care and last year used Safety Pods in 99 de-escalation cases with patients.

The use of ophthalmic lasers has become very common in the surgical care of many eye disorders and has successfully shown effective and safe results in treating various eye conditions. In the past, CHEO’s Ophthalmology Clinic needed to borrow and transport laser equipment from another local hospital in order to provide patient care. Thanks to donor generosity CHEO has purchased a new ophthalmology laser, providing children and youth with easier access to specialty care.

Music therapy is an evidence-based treatment that helps patients accomplish goals such as reducing stress, improving mood and developing self-expression. Music therapy experiences may include listening, singing, playing instruments or composing music. Thanks to the community’s generous donations, CHEO expanded its Music Therapy program in the last year, offering more services for young patients who are fighting various illnesses.

With donor funds, CHEO hired a certified music therapist in October 2022 to serve the CHEO School for one day per week, the CHEO Preschool for a half a day per week and CHEO’s inpatient unit for one day per week. The hospital was also able to purchase approximately $2,500 worth of music therapy equipment such as ukuleles, shakers, drums and maracas to allow for more participation and engagement with this service.

Here are a few examples of real CHEO stories that took advantage of this service donors so graciously support:

• The music therapist (MT) was able to support a family as they journeyed through the death of their two-year-old. The family joined in singing at the bedside and appreciated having a non-verbal way to connect with their son and a way for their other son to connect with his brother. When there was nothing to say and they were grieving, the parents cuddled their son as the MT softly played the family’s favourite songs.

• The MT provided procedural support on a weekly basis for a child who was agitated during their dialysis. The MT engaged the child in music, movement and instrument playing as a diversion while the child was being hooked up to the machine.

• A seven-year-old child who had recently had a leg amputation was struggling with hospitalization but consented to begin learning the ukulele with the MT in a series of sessions. Music served as a useful coping tool for dealing with their transition to new body changes and to their extended hospitalization.

Seriously ill children who cannot breathe on their own will sometimes need immediate access to a critical care ventilator to ensure that they get enough oxygen to their brain and body. Pediatric and neonatal patients may be put on a critical care ventilator in case of respiratory failure due to illness, serious injury or when they are recovering from complex surgery. Having access to these ventilators was paramount in 2022, when CHEO’s Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) saw its occupancy rate rise to 270 percent during the fall viral infection surge which primarily impacted infants and children under four years of age. Thanks to donor generosity, CHEO was able to purchase advanced ventilators for the PICU and Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) rooms, which was key in providing life-saving critical care to the most sick and vulnerable populations.

CHEO is striving to nurture a culture of belonging – where every member of Team CHEO and every child, youth and family we serve belongs. Our Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Indigeneity (EDII) Task Force continues to guide the work across CHEO, CHEO Research Institute and the CHEO Foundation. CHEO’s EDII Task Force was created to assess Team CHEO’s current landscape and progress to date and create a roadmap for change to better serve Indigenous and diverse communities. CHEO, CHEO Foundation and CHEO Research Institute have been champions and advocates for EDII in many ways. A recent example includes trialing and implementing a virtual language and sign interpretation provider (Voyce) to decrease barriers to interpretation for unexpected visits, emergency and virtual care. Voyce is an on-demand virtual service that allows CHEO’s medical staff to connect with an interpreter within a few seconds, making interpreter services more accessible and available to families. The platform offers services in over 240 languages, and with its usual wait time of 25 seconds, saves CHEO’s staff precious time that would otherwise be used to book an interpreter and wait for them to arrive at the hospital. With the help of donor funds, CHEO was able to purchase iPads so that care areas had devices dedicated to Voyce, further reducing barriers to using this service.

Voyce has proven itself invaluable to CHEO and its patients, having been used an average of 279 times per month in 2022.