Board Chair Message - January 2006

It is uncanny how quickly time passes, especially when you are busy. And, last year, we were busy - 2005 went by in a “flash”. On behalf of the Board of Directors, I want to thank our healthcare partners and teams for their tireless efforts in providing acute care to many thousands of people who sought our services.

Building on the successes of the last few years, the Board has undertaken to develop a new Strategic Plan. We feel that we are maturing to a new level of excellence and need to develop a Plan that ensures this growth will continue. The Plan will be far-reaching and comprehensive. It will identify significant achievable milestones that we feel are necessary to “steady the course” of this world-class organization.

Not many organizations have the privilege of moving through a course of events, as we did, that changes how healthcare is delivered in a city and a region. However, that is our enviable position.

I am reminded that a useful strategic plan moved us through a monumental time of change when restructuring reorganized healthcare in our city. In response, we initiated plans to move from two acute care sites to one, which we located in the Centre of Thunder Bay near Lakehead University. The Strategic Plan during that time of transition included that we provide the best acute care service possible, while undertaking the construction of a large new state-of-the-art acute care facility at the same time. The merits of our strategy became obvious once TBRHSC was opened. People everywhere have embraced our Health Sciences Centre and the vision for progress that we represent. The merits of our plans became even more apparent when the Northern Ontario School of Medicine began the training of physicians. The close proximity of TBRHSC to Lakehead University has become a critical component to facilitating the learning experience of medical students.

Now, importantly, we are moving on to new challenges. Our new Strategic Plan will articulate our direction as clearly as possible through a renewed, shared, sense of mission and purpose. We know there are inherent risks associated with any challenge, but we are going to weigh these risks against what we think is opportunity for considerable gain for TBRHSC. In a few days, we are initiating our first phase of renewal through a team of people selected from all disciplines who will identity current and anticipated issues, state our objectives through due diligence, and outline strategies to achieve our goals and objectives.

Our plans will soon become a reality. The idea is to prepare our organization for change and for growth. Obvious areas of preparation are to stabilize funding for the immediate and long-term, plan for demographic pressures such as an aging population needing more acute care in later years, identify human resource requirements, and identify what new services will be needed to meet demands for care, to name a few.

To achieve our goals, we intend to formalize the implementation of the plan. As we openly share our plans, we want each stakeholder to be able to measure appropriate outcomes that will inevitably yield what is in the best interests of themselves and TBRHSC for years to come. We are fortunate to have Dr. Peter Richardson from Queen’s University facilitate our efforts through this Strategic Planning process.

We are proud of the advancements we have made over the last few years in the delivery of acute care in our city and region. With confidence, I can state that we have exciting times ahead of us. On behalf of the Board of Directors, thank you for your continued support, and I wish you good fortune in all your activities this year.

Sincerely,

Ron Nelson, Chair
Board of Directors

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