Health Sciences North outlines 6-year strategic plan

A six-year strategic plan for Sudbury's hospital and research facility has been released.

On Tuesday, Health Sciences North and the Health Sciences North Research Institute released their 2019-2024 plan.

"[This] plan sets us on the right path for success," Dominic Giroux, president and CEO of the hospital said.

"We have embraced our role as the academic health sciences centre for the region and have carefully chosen 19 specific outcomes we want to achieve by 2024."

The hospital and research centre have chosen five key goals it will work to achieve by 2024. They include:

• Be patient and family-focused.
• Be digitally-enabled.
• Be socially accountable.
• Support and develop staff.
• Strengthen academic and research impact.

Giroux says these goals will be achieved in a number of ways. He says when it comes to being patient and family-focused, the development of a new capital master plan will help.

"That includes new bed spaces, fewer sites as right now, we have 13 sites in Sudbury when we're intended to be a one-site hospital," he said.

"We want to create more space for mental health and addictions care. We want to create more space to allow [more] programs for kids and youth who currently have to leave the region for care."

Other actions the hospital says it will do include fully implementing a regional electronic medical record system, launching a patient portal where people can access test results and schedule follow-up care and reducing wait times for medical imaging by purchasing a second MRI machine.

The hospital says it consulted more than 3,100 patients, employees, medical staff, volunteers, community partners as well as health care providers throughout the region to come up with the plan.

In the past, Giroux has admitted 2018 was a "challenging" year for the hospital. Faced with an $11-million deficit, job cuts had to be made to balance the books.

"We're on track to balance our budget by April," he said on Tuesday. "The worst is behind us."