Dear Staff, Professional Staff, Learners, Volunteers, Researchers, and Board members — greetings, boozhoo, and bonjour.

If the past 19 months have taught us anything, it’s that the future of health care and the role our Hospital will play in the system is more unpredictable than we ever believed.

The old way of doing things simply won’t suffice moving forward.

We need to create a culture that allows you to be more creative in our problem solving and more conscientious in the way we deliver our services in a region with a great many health challenges and aging demographics. Quite simply, a cultural shift is essential for us right now.

You have heard me talking about our Strategic Plan 2026 that’s in development and slated to be rolled out next month. Although some of you may look at something like a strategic plan as simply health care bureaucracy, please know it is critical for TBRHSC moving forward. It is our aligned road map for the next four years – years that may be the most crucial in our Hospital’s history.

There is often debate about whether an organization should focus on strategy or culture… and which is truly more important. I tend to side with Peter Drucker, an American theorist and author who said, “culture eats strategy for breakfast”. No matter how well developed an organization’s strategy is, it will never be successful if it is not fully supported by the organizational culture.

As you know, culture is a key driver for organizational engagement – and strong staff engagement is a critical element of our strategic plan going forward – critical for retention, recruitment, better employee wellbeing and fewer errors and incidents.

To assist with this next phase in our Hospital’s evolution, we are moving forward with operational and structural changes to align the organization to ensure success into the future.

In the coming weeks, we will be communicating some new leadership positions with new roles and responsibilities focused on the implementation of our Strategic Plan 2026. When the re-organization is complete, the senior leadership team will be smaller and leaner – with the budget savings going toward better supporting front line services.

Key role changes will be centered around integrating and aligning all patient experience and clinical transformation leadership – while creating a research arm of the organization that focuses more on Research Science, Innovation and Discovery – enabling the organization to move the research mandate of our Academic Health Sciences Centre.

With that being said, the current positions of Executive Vice President of Patient Care Programs/Regional Vice President of Cancer Services, North West Regional Cancer Program, and, Executive Vice President of Research, Quality & Academics are being eliminated. I want to thank Dr. Peter Voros for his leadership and support to COVID-19 operations and overall patient care leadership, and Kelly Meservia-Collins for her work during COVID-19 and with research/quality operations. They both have contributed greatly to our organization at a very challenging time, and they both deserve our respect and admiration.

Again, in the coming weeks, watch for job postings for the new roles that better align with the direction our Hospital is going in the coming years as we roll out the new Strategic Plan.

As always, I welcome comments on this blog or any other matter. You can reach me at: crockerelr@tbh.net

Rhonda