Shared on behalf of Dr. Rhonda Crocker Ellacott, President and CEO, TBRHSC, and CEO, TBRHRI
Hello, Boozhoo, Bonjour.
As you know, Accreditation Canada surveyors were on site this month, with four of them working across the building over four days and reviewing more than 2,800 criteria through tracer interviews, observations and conversations with our teams. I want to use this month’s blog to share what those days showed me about you, and what I want you to know coming out of them.
Accreditation surveys are not exams. They are designed to identify both the strengths a hospital brings to its work and the opportunities it has to improve, and both pieces of information matter. The process gives an outside team the chance to see how a hospital actually operates and to hand us back a picture we cannot draw of ourselves. Like every hospital, we have been through this cycle before and we will go through it again, because the work that gets surveyed is the work that happens here every day.
What I witnessed during those four days is what I see every day. Teams managing complex care with focus and steadiness, staff explaining their work to surveyors with confidence, clinical conversations carrying on the way they always do, and patients and families were being met with the attention and care that is your default rather than something put on for the occasion. The surveyors were with us for four days, but you are here for the other 361 days, and those days are not light ones. The Cardiovascular Surgery Program crossed 29 per cent construction completion this spring, the Emergency Department renovation is moving into its next phase, patient rooms across the Hospital are nearly through their refresh, and April marked one year since the launch of the Bridge Northwest Program and our move to Meditech Expanse, with the build phase well underway. You carry all of that alongside the patient care that does not pause for a survey week or anything else.
Through the visit, surveyors offered comments that confirmed what I already knew and believed about our team. The observations shared by the accreditors highlighted the strength of our patient and family centred care model, the scope of our programming, the focus on our region, the clear commitment to cultural sensitivity, and the integration they saw between clinical work and the academics happening alongside it and on how our teams handled questions and feedback as tools to work with rather than threats to manage.
Hearing those things from people whose work is to look at hospitals across the country matters, because it confirms that what we know about ourselves is also visible to outside eyes. The lasting comments related to our clear and purposeful commitment to patient centred care, advocacy, cultural safety, regional responsibilities and academic advancements truly made me proud. I hope you are able to share in this and recognize and appreciate the unique role you play in helping us to achieve our vision and mission each and every day.
The final report will come in due course, and the work it documents will be excellent. Thank you for the hours you put in to prepare, the steady professionalism you carried through the visit and for the standard of care that exists in this building when no surveyor is watching. That standard, the one that runs through this place when no one is grading it, is the one that matters.
To celebrate all of your incredible efforts at the Hospital and the Health Research Institute, we will take the opportunity to recognize your dedication, resilience and shared commitment through a Staff Appreciation BBQ. I hope to see you all there on June 17th.
Looking forward, Strategic Plan 2026 enters its final months as work on the next plan begins, and engagement activities to shape that next plan will start soon. When they do, I am hoping to hear from you, because the people who deliver care every day know what is working and what is not, and that knowledge belongs in the next plan.
As I wrap up this month’s blog, I want to remind everyone that June is National Indigenous History Month, and I encourage you to attend at least one of the events running across the Hospital and the Health Research Institute through the month.
Thank you for taking the time to stay informed and as always, I welcome any feedback about this blog or any other topics you would like to see addressed. You can reach me at rhonda.ellacott@tbh.net. I appreciate hearing from you.
