Resilience Conference

As I wrote previously, on Monday & Tuesday, we organized a conference entitled “Sustaining Transformation: Building a Resilient Organization” that focused on health care.  We had an amazing array of speakers! The conference was videoed and will be posting the videos on our website in the next short while.

Among our keynote speakers was Saäd Rafi, DM of the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care who spoke to the delegates on the need for resilience and a focus on quality of care. He spoke of the need for health care organizations to act as a real system that is better aligned to quality health outcomes and that the future core business of the sector is a focus on quality care. There are some who equate the amount of funding to the level of quality. Saäd emphasized that more money does not result in better quality. Indeed there is an argument that true quality is less expensive as it focuses on the best practices for the delivery of care based on evidence. Saäd spoke about the Ontario government’s new legislation “Excellent Care for All” that is presently being debated in the Legislature. This legislation focuses on quality and patient outcomes and requires every hospital to develop an annual Quality Plan that includes regular surveys of patients, their families, and staff to gauge the level of quality being delivered.

Saäd also connected what the Ministry is doing to the 4 parts of resilience model- Responds, Monitors, Anticipates and Learns. He emphasized that the learn is the most difficult as it requires behavioral changes in the system as a whole. The delegates appreciated his take on the challenges and opportunities ahead and the need to build truly resilient organizations in order to be successful.

There were a number of other incredible speakers, such as Dr. Marty Merry and Dr. Josh Tepper on 2nd curve health care organizations that I will blog about in a future update.