
A strategic plan is a key part of an organization’s commitment to excellence. This plan will guide our day-to-day decision making over the next five years and serve as a roadmap to navigate our rapidly changing health care system as we work together with patients, families and health system partners to improve the health of our communities. Please read on to learn more about our plan to transform care, together.
As an integrated health sciences centre we have new and better opportunities to deliver care where and how it is needed most, to transform the patient experience and to improve the health of people across our region and beyond.
Our story
In April of 2017, Hotel Dieu Hospital (HDH) and Kingston General Hospital (KGH) joined together to create the Kingston Health Sciences Centre (KHSC). As a single organization, KHSC offers a continuum of complex, acute and specialty care, research and teaching in both inpatient and outpatient settings for patients and families from across southeastern Ontario. Prior to integration, our two hospitals had a proven history of actively working together to meet patients’ needs. As one hospital with one strategy, one team and one budget, we have new and better opportunities to deliver care where and how it is needed most, to transform the patient experience and to improve the health of people across our region and beyond.
We can’t embark on this journey to transform care alone. Today’s patients are getting older and sicker and are living with more complex conditions . Their care often comes from multiple providers in different settings. To improve the health of our communities, we must partner in new ways with health and social service providers to build strong partnerships that focus on quality and innovation to ensure that the patient journey through our regional health care system feels as smooth and supportive as possible.
Patients and families are active members of our care teams and have an important voice within our system. KHSC is deeply committed to the principles of patient- and family-centered care, which include dignity and respect, information sharing, participation and collaboration. We partner with patients and families by ensuring that patient advisors contribute to every decision that impacts the patient experience. This partnership will continue to define who we are as an academic health sciences centre and provide inspiration for the research, teaching and care we provide.
Our five-year strategy for Transforming care, together was shaped by more than two thousand people who work, learn, volunteer, receive care at and partner with KHSC. It positions us for a bold future where a steady focus on quality, innovation and partnership helps us to transform our regional health care system. It describes a world-class health care, research and teaching environment that we all know is possible and that our patients and families deserve.
Fortunately, we are building on our strengths and this plan will help us leverage what we are already doing well, embrace challenges, keep us focused on our aspirations, and leverage the strengths of our communities and our people to position KHSC for success.
Our strategy development process
Our approach
Our strategy development process included a detailed environmental scan, an analysis of population health demographics, a close look at our organization’s current performance, and hundreds of conversations with stakeholders about the future of KHSC. It’s fair to say we learned a lot. To make sense of it all, we used a SOAR analysis to help us prioritize what we learned and choose what to act on in our strategic directions for the future so that we can leverage our existing strengths and capitalize on opportunities in our environment as we move toward our aspirations for the future and the results we want to achieve.
Here are some of the items that we must remember when thinking about the future of the organization:
Our mission, vision and values
KHSC is a brand new academic health sciences centre that builds on our proud traditions as Hotel Dieu Hospital and Kingston General Hospital, with legacies spanning back over 150 years. Our first planning process provided the exciting opportunity for us to engage with our KHSC community to help to define our purpose, our shared values and our desired future state for KHSC. Read on to learn about our mission, vision and values, or to hear from our people about the future of KHSC, click here.
KHSC aims to play a role in transforming our health care system. We can’t do this alone. Strengthening our partnerships, developing a robust quality roadmap, embracing innovation, making groundbreaking discoveries in research, and training the care providers of tomorrow will all contribute to improving the health of the communities and region we serve. With our collective expertise, we can serve as a model for health system transformation.
At the heart of our values is compassion. We care for some of the sickest and most vulnerable people in our communities. We treat each person with respect and dignity. We do this by caring for the whole person, when and where they need it most. Partnership is at the core of how we work. We empower patients, families and our teams to do great work together, and with our communities. The pursuit of excellence drives everything we do. We will be good stewards of resources while continually enhancing the quality of care, research and education we provide. Research and innovation reflect our courage to try new things, challenge what we know, create new knowledge and transform health care.
Strategic direction 1. Ensure quality in every patient experience
We aim to create a quality patient experience where excellence is embedded in everything we do. By creating a quality roadmap, we will provide the necessary structure, focus and support for us to achieve this goal. We will position KHSC as a high performer on the key dimensions of quality to ensure we are always delivering care that is safe, effective, patient-centred, efficient, timely and equitable. This work will be supported through construction and improvements to care environments to best suit the needs of our patients, families and care teams.
Strategic direction 2. Nurture our passion for caring, leading and learning
A quality work environment touches everyone who steps inside our hospital, especially patients and families. KHSC will support an engaged workforce by nurturing a positive, healthy environment and strengthening our culture of safety. By looking for new or faster ways to tackle tasks that detract from providing care, we will aim to support our people so they can improve the quality of the time they spend with patients, families and each other. Together with leaders across our organization, we will empower and equip our people while inspiring our teams to do their very best work.
Strategic direction 3. Improve the health of our communities through partnership and innovation
We want to provide care that best meets every patient’s needs no matter where they are in our region or what their unique challenges may be. By working more closely with our health and social service partners we can make sure patients get the right care where and when it’s needed most. This might mean placing our experts and services in the community and actively involving community partners as members of our care teams. At the same time, we want to continue our pursuit of innovation and discover new ways of delivering care, research and teaching to make our region healthier.
Strategic direction 4. Launch KHSC as a leading centre for research and education
Learning doesn’t end when a graduate crosses the stage – it’s an ongoing practice that we will embrace and foster at KHSC among our students, residents, staff and leaders. Working with our educational partners, we will restructure the way we deliver learning, support academic partnerships to strengthen our brand as a teaching and research hospital and position KHSC as a destination academic health sciences centre – a place where students, researchers and staff alike are inspired to learn and discover. By nurturing this culture of learning and the pursuit of knowledge, KHSC will remain on the leading edge of care, meaning that patients in southeastern Ontario will have access to world-class specialty and acute care, closer to home.