It’s been a busy year for the staff at Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH), and while much of the focus has been on dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of work has also been going on behind the scenes.
The hospital’s board of directors recently approved the Barrie hospital’s newly refreshed My Care Strategic Plan, which president and chief executive officer Janice Skot says is guided by an unwavering commitment to safety and quality.
With an eye to advancing innovation, learning and research, this updated plan will elevate RVH to the next level of excellence, says Skot, adding she likes to think of a strategic plan as a blueprint for the future.
“It’s meant to be an organizational roadmap and everyone can find their place and role. I always talk about us being in one boat, rowing in the same direction at the same speed and then the sky's the limit as to what we can get done," she said.
Despite the additional pressure the pandemic has brought with it, Skot said they have tried to keep the refreshing of the strategic plan front and centre, adding she's excited to roll it out to the organization.
The reason they opted to refresh the health centre’s existing strategic plan rather than create an entirely new one is that the fundamentals of the plan, approved in 2013, still hold true today, Skot noted.
The most important part of the plan are the values (Work Together, Respect All, Think Big, Own it and Care), she said, adding those words are how all staff are expected to work, practice and provide support at RVH.
“Those five values are our cornerstone,” said Skot, adding the hospital's mission and vision statements really haven’t changed. “There’d be no reason for those to be discarded. They’re really quite current.”
The most important piece about a strategic plan isn’t the outcome but the journey, she said.
“The journey is a bit like a flywheel. You’re gathering people as you go along to really be excited about the future of the organization and how they can play a part in making that happen,” Skot said.
More than 5,000 people have been involved in the plan since its initial development in 2013. The recent refresh, she said, has seen 600 members of RVH participate in surveys and by providing feedback, which she said has helped shape the overall goals of the plan itself.
“This refresh plan has 15 overriding goals (that) are mission critical for our organization,” said Skot, noting the overarching strategy is around the focus on MyCare. “We really put the emphasis on the best patient experience possible. As well have focused on making sure the patient has received timely care in the most appropriate setting.”
Other focuses, she noted, is on creating partnerships with other health agencies and continuing to drive clinical excellence.
“If we’ve learned anything in the pandemic it’s that nothing happens without partnership. We want to focus on the partnership in the health system. As the population ages, more chronic disease will be present and we know a lot of those can be prevented or delayed which has a lot to do with building healthy communities and we want to be part of that as well,” she said.
The strategy on driving clinical excellence is always about quality and safety and is one of the key elements is to address overcrowding and the growth in the population.
“Barrie’s story has been RVH’s story. We started as a four-bed cottage hospital in the 1800s and we keep building and expanding because that’s exactly what the population does,” she said. “We have a very ambitious plan, we call it our MP2 plan, but it’s a North Campus redevelopment that doubles the size of the building as well as a South Campus, that will fit where the population is growing.”
There are also pieces of the existing plan, noted Skot, they’d like to remove.
“We are interested in developing PET CT scanning facilities at RVH. We know our Wellington Street dialysis centre is older and needs to be redeveloped soon. We have some spaces that we were allowed to build when the government approved the project 2012… where we want to create a medical step-down unit… that would be a really important transition of care for us.”
There is also a focus on optimizing technology. Skot said RVH and three other partner hospitals are developing an electronic health record that will take them closer to paperless than where they are today.
“That’s an opportunity to optimize technology, mostly to make it safe, but as we recruit more and more young health-care professionals, their expectations are that technology is at their fingertips.”
None of this can happen, however, without the third strategy: “Value People."
“We are really working on making sure all voices are heard. We have developed a diversity and inclusion counsel and want people to feel safe, valued and belong. We want to be not only recruiting but retaining the best people who really live our values,” she said. “RVH is a values-driven organization. We expect people to want to live those values and to want to work in an environment where others live those values as well.”
The last strategy, she continued, is to accelerate teaching and research.
“We’ve done a fantastic job in developing our research potential. We have leaders in research, (but) we know many who come to work for us or to practise would like to have somewhat of an academic opportunity within a community regional hospital like RVH," Skot said. "We know it promotes innovation, enhances patient care and helps to retain and attract exceptional people. It’s very exciting.
"We know our focus on the patient experience has had huge dividends, even during pandemic. We are pretty excited about what we’ve done, but there’s lots more to do.”
