Meet Nova Scotia Health’s Perioperative (Surgical) Services Quality Improvement Leaders: Catherine Watt, Northern Zone

Surgical patients and Perioperative (Surgical) Services teams at Cumberland Regional Health Centre, Colchester East Hants Health Centre, and Aberdeen Hospital, have a new quality and safety champion in their corner.

Catherine Watt took on the brand-new role of Perioperative (Surgical) Services Quality lead for the Northern Zone (Colchester-East Hants, Cumberland, and Pictou counties) last year, and sees many opportunities to work with teams to impact the quality-of-care surgical patients receive. As a registered nurse (RN) with an extensive background in surgical nursing, along with a master’s degree in nursing (MN), Watt hit the ground running to quickly learn more about the surgical programs at her sites and how she could best lead and support their efforts to improve quality and patient safety.

“I collaborate with various team members within the sites to get quality initiatives off the ground and through to implementation and support them to monitor their progress. Some of these are related to patient safety, and others are part of bigger initiatives.”

One of the initiatives Watt is supporting is quality improvement in medical device reprocessing (MDR) to help support patient safety and prevent infections. This includes a focus on improving point-of-use instrument cleaning, instrument storage, and preventing cross-contamination.

“Making meaningful change requires the close collaboration of everyone from physicians and nurses to MDR technicians and everyone in between. We are proud to take these steps together to improve surgical quality and outcomes for patients.”

The work around quality improvement and patient care is often invisible but has a direct impact on the care patients receive and their results and recovery from surgery.

“There are a lot of people that you don’t necessarily see in an and around operating rooms, who genuinely care about patient outcomes and play an equally important role in providing safe, high-quality care as the people you see in an OR,” says Watt.

Watt appreciates the opportunity to work closely with her fellow quality leads across the province, as it allows her to see new and innovative ways to improve quality, streamline processes, and build a sense of community in her team.

“What gets me excited is the hope that we are making a difference in patient outcomes and that we will see the fruits of our labour,” says Watt. “It is fulfilling to see that our ideas, processes, collaboration, and work are changing and bettering the environment for surgical patient care and that we’re setting ourselves up for future success.”

Related stories:
Meet Nova Scotia Health’s Perioperative Quality Improvement Leaders: Susie Hardy, Eastern Zone