President and CEO Fiona Dalton has been on the move for the past four weeks, out and about across the organization sharing our seven-year Mission: Forward.
Mount Saint Joseph (MSJ) Hospital and Residence
The roadshow kicked off at MSJ with a room of about 75 staff and medical staff. With coffee and cookies in hand, the group was engaged throughout, asking questions ranging from what the future of MSJ looks like in light of the new St. Paul’s announcement, to job security, to plans for building maintenance (“We know that the strength of MSJ is in its people, not its buildings – but the buildings are a tool to make our people better and we very much need to get some of the basics right here in terms of upkeep”).
Holy Family Hospital and Rehab
Next Fiona walked through the four new strategic directions, four foundational principles and seven-year aspirational goals with Holy Family Hospital and Rehab staff and medical staff. Here, staff and medical staff shared comments around the importance of maintaining the culture of their site and the need for adjacency to acute care when thinking about future plans for rehab and where it fits with the new St. Paul’s. As one staff member commented, “The importance of Rehab can’t be understated both in terms of our culture, and our ability to lead in rehab philosophy.”
Crosstown Clinic
And then it was off to Crosstown Clinic where Fiona joined a packed room of staff and clients to share the Plan and discuss what else PHC could be doing to help address the devastating overdose crisis. One client shared his idea for setting up an ambassadors/peer support program in the ED at St. Paul’s to help improve the experience of those coming from the DTES that need care. A staff member said “Providence has been heroic over the last many years to get us to this point where heroin assisted treatment and concepts like safe supply is part of the national discourse. And that now we need new partnerships to take things to the next level.”
Corporate Services
The Corporate Services launch event, which saw attendance from staff who work at Hornby, St. Paul’s Foundation and Foundry. Sometimes it can be hard for corporate service folks to always see themselves in the work that’s happening within our acute and residential sites; however, projects like CST have so much corporate support happening on the sidelines with training, change management, and communication; flow and access work is only made stronger by the data and insights that are only able to be gleaned through Decision Support’s work; keeping the people we serve healthier and safer is better supported because of the expertise of our IPAC and PIC teams.
The week of April 15 brought with it the first week of our inaugural “Long Service recognition-meets- Mission: Forward launch” events.
And you know what?
It was a pretty great fit because if you don’t have exceptional people who are wanting to commit and grow with Providence than all the missioning forward in the world still will get us nowhere.
St. Vincent’s: Brock Farhni
Celebratory Long Service cake was first cut alongside the strategic plan launch at Brock Farhni, with site leader Ursula Piotrowski and SLT site partner (not to mention VP of strategy and seniors care so really, a triple-whammy!) Deborah Mitchell leading the way in acknowledging and lauding staff’s long service contributions. When asked “why Providence?” one of the Long Service recipients commented: “Because we care with our heart here; I haven’t seen that anywhere else.” In Fiona’s launching of the strategic plan, when she presented on the “People-Forward” strategy, one of the examples she cited was that people from Brock Fahrni win more Mission Awards than from any other site.
St. Vincent’s: Honoria Conway
Honoria Conway was a combined event, and staff and tenants were in attendance to cheer on the people whose years of work were being recognized by site leader Robena Sirett, and SLT site partner Brian Simmers. In addition to individual staff being honoured, the whole of Honoria Conway’s staff group was applauded by Fiona for having just achieved the site’s highest satisfaction score in Honoria Conway’s history – which saw half of the people who live at Honoria Conway participating in the assessment. And it was actually this same group of invested tenants who asked all of the questions following the launch of the new plan, advocating for their staff who they feel work too hard already, and wanting to know where building maintenance and upkeep was captured in the plan. It is a site that dearly loves its staff and the feeling is obviously mutual.
St. Paul’s Hospital
It was a full house at St. Paul’s launch event (next time, the plan will be to move the set-up to the back corner so that everyone can fit!). Popped up in front of the cafeteria windows on a clear, bright morning, Fiona outlined the 7-year plan for staff, medical and research staff, trainees and contract staff. Those in attendance wanted to know about the Supercluster project – what is it and what’s happening with it, and wanting to know more about the place that research will hold in the new St. Paul’s, and what the timing is.
St. John Hospice
It was then onto St. John Hospice where Patient Care Manager Ella Garland and SLT site partner Christopher DeBono hosted an intimate Long Service recognition event in the hospice conference room, where the celebration of staff’s and volunteer’s years of service was further amplified by warm words of praise for each recipient from Clinical/Site Coordinator for the hospice, Kelly Konyk. This laid an ideal foundation to begin the discussion around our “Mission Forward” with Fiona expressing that over the next few months the work of every team will be to identify what the plan means for them in the next one and two years, and also to nail down their vision: what do you want to do here, what are you able to do and what do you need Providence to accomplish it, and then let’s have that discussion.
Youville
Launching the strategic plan at the site where Megamorphosis all started felt significant – so many of the places where we’re wanting to be “forward” rely on the people who work here feeling heard and that they have the ability to suggest an idea that will be acted on. So that at one point Youville had a total of 56 testable ideas all happening at the same time feels like a good place to be talking about the disruptive and innovative thinking that will be required! And staff had to look no further than Parkview for examples of the types of partnerships Providence will need to foster over the next seven years to ensure we get to where we want to be. The priority Parkview staff and leadership place on patient and family relationships, like hosting their second-annual community BBQ for patients and families of Youville and tertiary communities, or their colab with the Alzheimer’s Society to offer a Dementia Dialogue Series for Caregivers across Tertiary, MSJ and Youville.
St. Vincent’s: Langara
The event saw the strategic plan being launched to Langara staff, residents, and family members, which made Fiona mentioning the above-and-beyond work that Langara staff has done for residents particularly impactful. Efforts like ensuring that couples are able to live together here, or the work that went into having twin sisters both be able to live at Langara, or most recently that a daughter was able to join her mother for several months before her mother passed. And while it wasn’t a combined event with long service, that there are a few staff who have worked at Langara since this site opened 28 years ago was an amazing example of the commitment of the people who work here. Questions from this group covered wanting to know more about future plans to build a dementia village, a desire to see the basics improved around food and coffee, and wondering how we recruit people and keep them given the cost of living.
Now, forward!
With April and launch month behind us, May and June will focus on beginning to share some of the current stories happening across the organization to bring real-life examples to the aspirational goals that have been developed to support each of the four directions.
Organizationally, the strategic plan sets-up where we want to be in seven years. As teams, it will be an iterative process to be continually updating action plans to ensure we are moving the dial ever-closer to achieving our seven-year vision, and also ensuring that every department or program or service has a version of what that desired future state looks like for that area. Only the people in Radiology know what “People-Forward” looks like for their team, just like Geriatric Medicine will be the experts on what being “Learning-Forward” means for them.
Work is currently being done around CLT and SLT tables to identify the work that we need to get right, first. This will inform the actions we need to take on organizationally to operationalize the plan, and will guide the program/department/service-level two-year goals. Stay tuned!
If you were able to make it out to one of our 10 site events, thank you! If you missed the event at your site, not to worry:
• Launch packs have been dropped off with programs and units across the organization, equipped with everything that your team needs to have your own launch party on a date + time that works for your team. Missing a pack or some collateral? Don’t hesitate to be in touch: Providence2026@providencehealth.bc.ca.
• We will be creating an FAQ to accompany a video of Fiona leading a launch presentation so that you can feel like you were in the room, hearing the presentation and being part of the Q&A in real-time.