The morning of December 12 saw 25 people from across OH&S, HR, Redevelopment, Communications, Finance cycle through a large-group discussion held at Hornby Street office for our corporate services staff. As those who provide support for our point of care staff and leadership, their insights ranged from how to better make staff more aware of the supports in place for them, to what makes them proud to support this work, to where they see opportunities in our way forward.
Here are a few* of the insights shared that afternoon:
• Staff at other, non-PHC hospitals seem so focused on “treating” versus realizing that what they’re treating is a person.
• Maybe you can change the names of floors or meeting rooms, or add more art to be more inclusive and symbolically represent that people who access the hospitals services?
• As soon as people enter the hospital, they know they’ll be taken care of. There’s a different atmosphere here.
• The culture has been developed over a long period of time. The uniqueness is that care, that compassion. The environment, even though it’s dated, there is something warm about it. At St. Paul’s I’ve never felt that “business” atmosphere.
• Does management taste the food being delivered to patients?
• At MSJ, depending on the type of patient that comes in, the whole environment can change. But the staff numbers don’t change. It’s a very unpredictable environment with a very rigid way of scheduling. How adaptable are the staff for dealing with that sort of ebb and flow?
• What about the people who do maintenance, or those who deliver our food? This is an important group to engage. Some of these jobs are contracted out so it’s important to make sure that your contractors are on the same page.
• Is there a way to pull staff from other areas so that the workload is distributed differently? I think more helping hands would reduce stress asap.
• What needs to be looked at more closely is the organization’s expectations on the workload that people carry. I don’t know how we expect people to compassionate and caring when they working all of these hours.
• If hospitals were a business we would have gone bankrupt. That people are handwriting physician notes or that transferring a patient’s information across health authorities can’t happen is absurd. It’s a safety issue as far as I’m concerned.
• Being able to see updates on your own health, or be able to access updates to a loved one’s file in real time would diminish stress and free up staff time because we wouldn’t be hounding staff for information. If I had been able to get my discharge plan ahead of my discharge, then there wouldn’t be any confusion.
• I’m not aware how much the public knows about St. Paul’s being world class. For those of us who have been there, we know. But for most people, it’s this rundown hospital downtown and for those who have never been there, they likely never want to go. How well is the story of St. Paul’s being told?
* please note: this is a high-level summary; all sentiments discussed were fully captured by the facilitators!
This recent session with Corporate Services staff was part of a series of facilitated engagement sessions across PHC where employees, patients, residents, family members, clinicians, researchers and volunteers were invited to weigh in on the creation of a new 7-year strategic plan (2019 – 2026) for the organization.
Our period of formal, large-group engagement has wrapped up but, not to worry!
Bloom is open for business (and by business, we mean big ideas that you’d like to contribute to our pursuit of world class) until December 31!
https://bloomprovidencehealthcare.org/
Registering on Bloom adds your voice to this important conversation, and enters your name in a draw to win some excellent prizes. See what’s up for grabs:
https://bloomprovidencehealthcare.org/story-page-test/news_feed/add-your-voice-win-a-prize
