By Janice Deganis, Chair of Grand River Hospital’s Board of Directors
We live in a bustling and growing community, so it’s no surprise that these words also describe the region’s largest hospital. Grand River Hospital has undergone a great deal of change and brought about a significant number of important initiatives in the recent past. This is in no small way the result of eleven years of outstanding service given to the hospital and the larger health care community by our CEO, Malcolm Maxwell. More change is in our future as Malcolm recently announced his retirement and the recruitment process for our next President and CEO is underway.
The hospital board of directors, our hospital leadership and staff as well as many of our community partners have put a lot of thought into the future of Grand River Hospital. Our organization’s vision is expressed with three simple but impactful phrases: Exceptional care. Healthy community. One patient at a time. There’s so much we’ve done and so many exciting plans we have to achieve our vision.
Key to the future of health care in our region is the very strong partnership that exists between Grand River Hospital and St. Mary’s General Hospital. This partnership has resulted in great improvements in the care that patients receive while in our hospitals. With the support of each of their boards and senior leaders, Malcolm and St. Mary’s General Hospital President Don Shilton together have nurtured and expanded this partnership over many years.
Our two hospitals are among Canada’s leaders in quality of care and patient safety. As we move forward, we’re taking that collaboration a giant step further through our combined clinical transformation project – bringing in a new health information system and redesigning the way care is provided.
By coincidence, Mr. Shilton has also chosen to retire this year. With our organizations’ most senior leaders moving on, some members of the community are asking if there might be value in recruiting a single leader and combining our administrative structures – perhaps even building a brand new single hospital. Such decisions are not taken lightly, aren’t entirely ours to make and aren’t achieved quickly or easily.
It’s a time of unprecedented change at both hospitals – the new health information system for improved care at our two hospitals plus exciting strategic priorities. These include a cardiac care expansion at SMGH and at GRH we are growing our neurosciences program and expanding our work in research and innovation. All directly impacting patient care in our region.
Our hospitals need two visionary leaders to champion the changes, so each of the hospital boards is conducting its own search for successors for their hospitals. Because it is so important to the community that the two leaders work well together and share a vision, the two boards are collaborating throughout the process.
The posting for the President and CEO position at Grand River Hospital has been published and we encourage community members to share the news of this opportunity with friends, family and colleagues.
More information is available at https://jobs.longwoods.com/job/57124/president-and-chief-executive-officer-grand-river-hospital/ (opens in a new tab)
We look forward to telling you more about the recruitment process, and of course introducing our next President and CEO when a successful candidate has accepted the position.
Please be sure to check back at www.grhosp.on.ca/news for the latest information, or follow us on Twitter (@GRHospitalKW- opens in a new tab), Facebook (Grand River Hospital- opens in a new tab) and LinkedIn (Grand River Hospital- opens in a new tab).
Thank you.