Strategic plans

Exceptional quality, safety & value

We deliver quality care that matters to the people we serve. 

Why this? 

It’s fair to say that quality and its ally, patient safety, have always been at the core of who we are. Now, more than ever, we’re making decisions in partnership with patients and families based on what matters most to each individual. 

The health and wellness, but also fears and worries, of those we serve must become central to decisions about what resources we mobilize to care for them. 

That’s a person and family-centred approach and it’s also the “value” part of this direction. Value-based care is a concept that refers to ensuring that we are prioritizing the care and resources that matter most to the people we serve. 

Goals:

• Understand, evaluate and prioritize quality (outcomes, experience & safety, including eliminating preventable harm).
• Advance the recommendations of the In Plain Sight Report through the delivery of high quality, equitable, identity affirming and culturally-safe services that are valued by Indigenous patients, residents and families.
• Offer the people we serve the right care, in the right place, at the right time.
• Practise “value-based health care” which prioritizes what matters to the people we serve as a way to drive quality and efficiency.
• Readily access data and information and use them continuously to improve our person and family centred care.
• Improve the physical environment across PHC.

Inspiring people & teams 

We attract the best people and support them to flourish. 

Why this? 

We are only as good as our people. We’ve all heard this many times in various settings, but in health care, truer words have never been spoken. 

During the consultation process, we made our voices heard and our concerns clear:

• We need to support each other better.
• We need to include each other, connect with each other, empower each other and recognize each other, formally and informally.
• We also need to build flexibility into our work and our schedules. We need to create space for innovation, ideas and change — from the labs to the kitchens, to the nursing stations, to the boardroom.
• And we also need to extract meaning and fulfillment from our work, which includes having the resources and support to feel good about what we do and finding ways to address fatigue, exhaustion and support wellness.

Goals:

• Be the organization of choice, with a focus on attracting, developing, engaging & retaining our people.
• Dismantle systemic biases in our systems and processes.
• Engage and empower our people in meaningful ways and nurture a culture where every voice is heard.
• Prioritize the health, safety and wellness of our people.
• Ensure each of us understands how our work connects to Providence’s Mission, strategic directions and goals.

Discover, learn & innovate for impact

We create a culture where every person can learn, grow, imagine and bring forward new ideas. 

Why this? 

A “learning organization” is one that puts emphasis on the learning of its people and continuously transforms itself. During the strategic planning consultations, many of us voiced the desire to put more emphasis on learning and innovation. Many of us also wanted to clarify the process of bringing forward new ideas and potential changes so that everyone has this opportunity and feels empowered to do so. 

Another key ingredient of learning is… failing. Yes, failing. Because with every setback comes the opportunity to reflect, learn and grow. So this direction is also about creating the space for us to take calculated risks in an effort to dream up disruptive, even transformational ideas. Given our size, and our ability to be more agile than larger health organizations, we aspire to become the “go-to” place to prototype new ideas, incubate novel concepts, and test creative theories. Given that aspiration, this strategic direction also speaks to the added emphasis we will place on research, innovation, and teaching, which all go hand-in-hand with being a “learning organization.” We have an extraordinary track record of research and discovery — an enterprise that we plan to scale up and bring to every corner of Providence. 

Goals:

• Make every interaction with the people we serve an opportunity for learning, research and continuous improvement.
• Advance appropriately governed data, research, learning – and unlearning – to support PHC to be in right relations with, and deliver high quality care to, Indigenous Peoples.
• Nurture and support innovative and disruptive ideas that transform care in BC and around the world, especially for people with complex medical and social service needs.
• Ensure that each of us understands that we have the responsibility and the opportunity to improve our services.
• Be an education leader among Canadian academic teaching hospitals and prioritize the training of the next generation of health care professionals.

Partner to transform health care 

We embrace partnerships, digital health and technology to offer seamless care. 

Why this? 

Our priorities are always to fill a need, to serve and advocate for those with complex medical and social service needs, and to discover, create and invent what’s needed to solve whatever health or social problems our communities face. 

While feeling confident in our own abilities to do whatever it takes to help those we serve, we have the humility to realize that we must partner with others to grow our capacity to improve what we do. These partners include: other health authorities and all levels of government; sovereign host Nations of Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh, and Indigenous partner organizations; community and patient groups; the private sector; foundations, and so many others. 

Good partnerships will help ensure patients can move easily from our care into the care of other appropriate health and social support systems. Good partnerships will also help us move more quickly toward adopting technology that will give those we serve options about how far they have to travel, how quickly they receive services, and how closely they are monitored and supported throughout their care journey. 

Goals:

• Build and strengthen responsive, reciprocal and accountable partnerships with sovereign host Nations, Indigenous partner organizations and Indigenous patients, residents and families.
• Create partnerships with government and other public, private and academic organizations to advance new models of care.
• Cultivate partnerships that enable integrated care and more seamless transitions between hospital, specialty care, primary and community care.
• Seek and create partnerships with leading technology and digital health organizations to improve responsiveness, connectivity and quality.
• Prioritize partnerships that improve the care journey for people with complex medical and social service needs.

Everything begins with Mission

Our advocacy, compassion, spirit of innovation, and commitment to social justice can be directly traced to our Mission.

Through compassionate care, teaching and research, we aspire to treat the whole person — body, mind and spirit.

This includes our efforts to care for those with complex medical and social service needs, and take care of those who are called to work here.

Goals:

• Providence Health Care’s Mission, vision and values are manifested in the behaviours of our people.
• We embody our values by sharing truths and taking action to readdress inequities, oppression and injustice.

Hearing truth, pursuing justice, building relationships

Reconciliation is not an outcome, but a process.

It is commitment and action that we undertake each and every day.

Reconciliation is relationship. It requires us to lay proper groundwork through hearing truth, pursuing justice, and building respectful and reciprocal relations.

Reconciliation is restoration. It requires recompense and investment in reconstruction.

We all hold a responsibility to advance Indigenous wellness and reconciliation.

Goals:

• Providence Health Care is committed to the process of Truth and Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples and it is embedded in everything we do.
• In partnership with sovereign host Nations of Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh, we will establish a first-of-its-kind Indigenous Wellness and Welcoming Centre on the grounds of the new St. Paul’s Hospital and Health Campus as a meaningful contribution to healing and reconciliation.

Ethics are fundamental to all we do

Ethical decision-making is a vibrant and dynamic field of study and practice. At Providence we hold ourselves, and each other, to the highest ideals and continue to probe and explore the discipline of ethics and ethical practice.

Moving forward, we will strengthen the capacity of all Providence people to consider ethics as part of our daily decision-making.

We will also challenge ourselves to become a centre of excellence in ethics services, working as national leaders and educators.

Goals:

• Providence Health Care staff and medical staff demonstrate strong capacity for ethical decision-making.
• Providence Health Care will be provincial, national, and international leaders in the community of Ethics.

Proactive financial and environmental stewardship

At its foundation, our sustainability plan is about ensuring we can continue to pursue our Mission into the future.

It means creating a financial plan that supports the innovations needed to deliver exceptional experience and outcomes including building next-generation infrastructure.

At the same time, it also means reducing our environmental footprint to achieve — and hopefully exceed — national benchmarks for sustainability, green initiatives, and minimal impact.

Goals:

• Ensure our financial plan is sustainable and has diversification of our revenue sources to support capital infrastructure and innovations needed to deliver our Mission Forward plan.
• Be the public health care sector industry environmental sustainability leader in B.C. by achieving the goals laid out in the Provincial Clean BC Plan.

Partners in care

We believe that partnering with those we serve, and their families as defined by them, in their own care, is the path to better patient outcomes and experience.

We believe that through building trust and respect, the relationships we establish with one another have the potential to dismantle the power imbalances that have traditionally existed between caregivers and patients.

And that is better care. We believe that by partnering with those we serve, we can offer care that is valuable and valued by them.

And what matters to them, is what matters most.

Goals:

• Provide the people we serve and their families the tools & resources to be full partners in their own care.
• Be British Columbia’s public healthcare sector leader in providing person and family centred care.