Strategic Plan

The Sun Country Health Region (SCHR) Strategic Plan summarizes work from the Provincial Health Plan and the Regional priority projects for 2012/13.

Strategic Planning

In 2011, the Ministry of Health adpoted a new process for strategic planning referred to as strategy deployment or Hoshin Kanri. 

This year, Sun Country Health Region Health along with other health system leaders from Regional Health Authorities, Saskatchewan Cancer Agency, Health Quality Council, SAHO and the Ministry of Health worked together to create a provincial Health Plan.

Definition of Strategy Deployment (Hoshin Kanri)

In Japanese, Hoshin means shining needle, compass or direction; Kanri means policy. Together they are translated as strategy deployment.

Strategy Deployment or Hoshin Kanri is a process whereby leaders determine priorities and engage all levels of staff to ensure the priorities are achieved. This process is called “catchball”.

The process of catchball is one of the key differences in this type of strategic planning. It engages staff at all levels of the organization in the future development of the priorities.

The engagement of staff, physicians and managers to be successful in their work is key to accomplishing the vision of a transformed health system.

Definition of Lean

Lean is a production strategy in which all parts of a production system are focused to eliminate waste while continuously increasing the percentage of value added work.

Strategy Deployment (Hoshin Kanri) in Sun Country Health Region

In strategic planning Strategy Deployment (Hoshin Kanri) and Lean are powerful tools for managing an organization’s direction or focus, setting targets and reaching goals.

Sun Country Health Region along with the Ministry of Health and other stakeholders have committed to a system-wide adoption of Strategy Deployment (Hoshin Kanri) as a first step in the implementation of a Lean system for Saskatchewan health care.

As part of the Strategy Deployment (Hoshin Kanri) process the following Triple Aim strategies that support the vision of a transformed health care system were developed. They are: Better Health, Better Care, Better Value. Critical to the success of this vision is a commitment to safe and quality workplaces supporting patient and family-centered care that will enable the development of Better Teams.

These strategies focus on making improvements to the health of the population, individual care and financial sustainability in the context of value. The fourth aim is intended to strengthen the health care workforce to enable the changes required to improve the other three aims.

Also identified were three important foundational pieces to the work we do – Patient & Family Centered Care (Patient First Review), Continuous Performance Improvement and Thinking and Acting as One System.

To continue the process of Strategy Deployment (Hosin Kanri), Sun Country Health Region Health along with other health system leaders from Regional Health Authorities, Saskatchewan Cancer Agency, Health Quality Council, SAHO and the Ministry of Health identified five breakthrough priorities for transformation: 

1. Transform the Patient Experience through Sooner, Safer, Smarter Surgical Care.
2. Strengthen Patient-centered Primary Health Care by Improving Connectivity, Access and Chronic Disease Management.
3. Deploy a Continuous Improvement System including training, infrastructure across the health system with an initial focus on the surgical value stream and 3P within Five Hills, Prairie North, PAPRHA and Saskatoon.
4. Safety Culture: Focus on Patient and Staff Safety.
5. Identify and Provide Services Collectively Through a Shared Services Organization.

The Sun Country Health Region management team reviewed the breakthroughs and thought about what could be done in the next 12-18 months to support the achievement of these goals. The team identified 17 projects.

Our challenge is to focus our time and effort on these 17 projects and finish them before starting new projects.