If you opened this paper yesterday, chances are you came across the Hospital Report 2001: Acute Care supplement. Heck, even if you didn't buy yesterday's Sun (leaving aside the obvious question of why not?), the supplement was in every major daily.

Anyways, the four-page broadsheet report is a joint-effort between the Government of Ontario and the Ontario Hospital Association, with research design and data aggregation services provided by the University of Toronto and the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). This is the first in a series of reports for 2001 with other evaluations in areas such as emergency care, rehabilitation, nursing and population health, just to name a few, due to be released this fall.

As an institutional effort, this is the third year in which these reports and their findings are being publicly released. These reports rank hospitals on a five-star rating system in their class (teaching, community or small hospital) vis-à-vis other "peer" (read: Same class) hospitals across the province. The report is a tool that allows hospital administrators, health care experts, politicians and most importantly, health care consumers (read: Taxpayers) to evaluate the performance of their local hospital.

From a global public policy perspective, this survey of over 74,000 patients treated in 95 acute care facilities allows all stakeholders to assess hospitals based on outputs, as opposed to inputs. This is a welcome step forward. Instead of focusing on the $8.6 billion the province spends on hospitals through the Ministry of Health, we have begun to consistently and objectively measure what we're getting (read: Service and value) for this money.

Province-wide, 83% of patients rated the care they received as excellent. Not surprisingly, Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto ranked number one. With our own version, CHEO, ranked a close second. The Montfort also ranked highly in the four areas of patient satisfaction. And as Andrew Seymour reported in yesterday's Sun, the Queensway-Carleton received average rankings overall while the Ottawa Hospital was average or below-average across the four major categories of patient satisfaction, patient care, hospital finances and keeping pace with change.

To be fair, these are system-wide rankings and each hospital can find a reason to crow in one area or another.

As well, we should acknowledge the efforts of front-line health care workers, especially nurses and other allied health professionals, who have borne the brunt of increased patient utilization, demographic shifts and funding challenges with grace and penultimate professionalism.

But closer to home, there is much work to be done. Both the Ottawa Hospital and the Queensway-Carleton received a one-star ranking - the lowest ranking possible - under the financial health section of the survey. Only one other hospital, Guelph General received such a dismal mark.

So for those who have repeatedly claimed that the firing of the hospital board was politically motivated, as the old Starkist Tuna commercial used to say, sorry Charlie. Patients themselves have objectively assessed the Ottawa Hospital's performance and the province arrived at the same conclusion.

Into to this morass arrives Dennis Timbrell, the cabinet appointed supervisor for the hospital. His early indication that he expects to be here for six or nine months only is encouraging. Indeed, corporate reorganizations and business turnarounds are best facilitated in a deliberate and decisive environment where a momentum building pace - not reckless speed, but rigourous speed - is critical to success.

This is partly where the hospital board failed. Moving and re-organizing services across the three-campuses, especially moving more outpatient, ambulatory care services to the Riverside campus, was painfully slow. Some of this was due to a lack of capital or operational funding from Toronto, but the delays were also a function of governance gridlock.

I have no doubt that Mr. Timbrell has already plowed through a variety of Ministry prepared briefing books and is now immersing himself in background documentation prepared by the senior management team at the hospital. >From these two divergent sets of documents a truth will be derived, like two accounts of the same event, the truth lies somewhere in-between.

These efforts, combined with his on-site and on-campus observations, should yield a decisive, measurable and transparent recovery plan for the hospital. While Mr. Timbrell should be given room and time to digest the volumes of information about the hospital organization, one would hope that he also establishes (let's say by Labour Day) a community feedback loop where he can report, in general terms, on his progress.

Nothing elaborate is needed. A mere synopsis - made publicly available and respectful of confidentiality where necessary - of his reports or advice to the Minister would suffice. And given Mr. Timbrell's experience in the broad healthcare sector for the past quarter-century, both in government and on the service delivery side, taxpayers can rest assured that quality care will not suffer during this planning for recovery process.

While the sacking of the old hospital board was not doubt painful for some and difficult for the province to do, the recovery process is now underway.

With both the management team and the old board respecting the decision of the province and pledging their cooperation, Mr. Timbrell's arduous task has been made a touch easier. Ottawa anxiously awaits his first steps and moves to put the Ottawa Hospital back on track …