Executive Report
A Year of Change, Challenges and Opportunities
A message from Niagara Health System Board Chair Betty-Lou Souter, President and Chief Executive Officer Debbie Sevenpifer, and Chief of Staff Dr. B. William Shragge
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The Niagara Health System is patient-focused and remains deeply committed to providing quality, timely and compassionate care to the 425,000 people who live in Niagara.
In healthcare, we are ever mindful of the tremendous challenges that we face. With those challenges come tremendous opportunity, and certainly the Niagara Health System (NHS) has seen its share of both over the 2006-2007 fiscal year.
Just seven years young, the NHS continues to evolve as an integrated system of hospital sites to serve the health-care needs of 434,000 residents across Niagara.
Building upon our five Success Factors now firmly embedded in our day-to-day operations, we developed and introduced our Mission Critical Corporate Priorities for fiscal 2006-2007, setting forward a comprehensive multi-year plan that articulates and demonstrates the steps we are taking towards our vision of Together in Excellence – Leaders in Niagara.
These corporate priorities are major initiatives that will take the organization to its next level and are all aligned with our success factors.
Under each of the success factors are our key goals and the associated deliverables, measurements and timelines for completion. These current goals help to lay out where we want to be by the end of this year, and will build the foundation for the next steps in the evolution of NHS services, programs and sites.
In the pages that follow, you will find a status summary on each of our mission critical priorities, along with highlights of other significant achievements and challenges.
Common Themes
There are several common themes that will undoubtedly emerge as you review this material. Chief among them is that in the ever-changing environment that is healthcare, the NHS, through the support and expertise of its health-care team of physicians, nurses, staff and volunteers, must continually strive to find and introduce new and better ways to deliver quality care. This means care that is compassionate, safe, timely, efficient, effective, delivered closer to home and in improved surroundings. It's what the people of Niagara expect, and it's what the people of Niagara deserve.
Throughout 2006-07, the members of the NHS health-care team continued steadfast in their efforts to build our hospital organization as an exceptional provider of quality patient care. Once again, a remarkable number of accomplishments and considerable positive momentum were realized over the last year across our various individual programs and services as well as organizationally. This is truly impressive given the ever complex, demanding and resource-restrained environment in which we function.
People - The Core of Our Success
It is often said that people are at the core of a hospital's success. Nowhere is that more true than at the NHS. Our dedicated team of physicians, nurses, allied health professionals, support staff and volunteers constantly rises to the challenge of whatever we face, whether it is the rigours of accreditation, the intensive work of delivering on the provincial Wait Time Strategy in a region that is older and sicker than all other communities in Ontario, or many of our other important initiatives.
It is also important that we recognize the tremendous amount of work that has been undertaken by the people of the NHS in support of the new health complex. The workload for this project is like none we have ever seen before, and for most of the people of the NHS involved in the planning of the project, this workload is in addition to their regular duties. These physicians, nurses, allied health professionals, staff and volunteers all deserve a sincere thank you for their commitment, expertise and sacrifice in order to build a better health-care system and a better Niagara.
We are extremely grateful to the many members of the public who have taken the time to attend our community open houses and share with us their thoughts and feelings about healthcare in Niagara. We will continue to seek opportunities for community engagement as we move forward with our health-care planning. We all have a vested interest in healthcare in Niagara. By working together, we can make the improvements required and be better prepared to adapt to the changes that are inevitable across healthcare.
All of our achievements are proof of the power of partnership and of working as a team towards a common goal, and that goal is better healthcare for our patients.
In closing, we would like to thank all our nurses, staff, physicians, Board members and other volunteers for being part of the NHS team as we celebrate our many successes over the last year.