Senior administrators at Sudbury Regional Hospital have been showing their faces in hospital wards and nurse lounges a little more often lately.
Hospital CEO Vickie Kaminski and hospital board chair Gisele Chretien toured all three hospital sites recently and talked to staff members and patients.
“One of the things I've heard from staff is they don't see enough senior management presence on our other sites. Our main offices are here (the Laurentian site) so we tend to be here for most of our work days,” said Kaminski.
“They were feeling a bit isolated and a bit disconnected, and they said it would be great if we could have a different arrangement. One of the things we're doing is going on tours around the sites.”
Chretien, who took over as board chair from Geoffrey Lougheed less than a year ago, is enjoying getting to know staff members, she said.
Another change is a senior staff member will always be present at each of the three hospital sites.
“We'll spend a week at a time there, and we'll let staff know that we're there. We'll say 'If you've got issues, come and talk to us, and let's improve communication'."
Kaminski said making herself and the board chair more accessible to staff and patients is not in response to criticism administration faced earlier this year.
“We've been doing a number of surveys with our hospital staff over the last couple of years, looking at what some of the issues are, and one of the things we've heard from them is this issue,” she said.
“We've been doing incremental steps. We started off with all-staff sessions. I do updates in person. It's their opportunity to ask questions," she said.
"Then we started small coffee sessions where 10 to 15 people are invited to sit with me and have coffee and an informal chat.
“We also started a communication on the Internet called ask the CEO. This is the next evolution in those sets of strategies that we've come up with to get more connection across the system.”
