CEO Report - March 2, 2023

CEO Report: Celebrating Accomplishments of SHA Teams

The CEO highlighted several recent Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) team accomplishments. In recent months and years, health care teams have dealt with the significant challenge of battling a global pandemic. At the same time, teams have refocused attention on areas of critical need for the people of Saskatchewan, such as responding to recruitment and retention challenges, addressing surgical waitlists, working on hospital overcapacity issues, strategizing on how we create better access to primary health care and supporting much-needed infrastructure projects. Some of the major highlights touched on included work on reducing capacity issues, significant progress on surgical volumes and backlog, focused work to recruit health care professionals as a result of the investment in health human resources by the Government of Saskatchewan and efforts in rural and remote locations to stabilize emergency room services. This impressive list is by no means exhaustive but it does highlight progress on our path towards health-care transformation. SHA teams have proven over and over again their capacity to work together to overcome roadblocks and find a path forward towards providing high quality health care for the people of Saskatchewan.

The CEO presented an update on work being done in a number of strategic priorities in relation to numerous goals in the overall areas of Our People, Connected Care and Information & Infrastructure. Updates of note include the work advanced as part of the Health Human Resources (HHR) plan, enhancing team-based care through Health Networks, further work on the stabilization of rural and remote services, continued work on a number of projects in the Mental Health and Addictions space, progress on major capital projects around the province, the importance of Cyber-Security Training for all staff, focused efforts in relation to pediatric volume pressures and Saskatoon capacity challenges as well as highlighting the recent launch of the revised Executive Leadership Team structure designed to strengthen our leadership to support the SHA to achieve our vision of Healthy People, Healthy Saskatchewan.

Chief Medical Officer’s report:  Priority work on the Health Human Resources Plan and Physician Recruitment

Quarter 4 (Q4) of the SHA 2022-23 Roadmap saw the office of the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) progress the work identified within Goal One to support and invest in our most valuable resource, our people. Health Human Resources (HHR) is a major challenge across Canada and remains a first priority. The SHA continues to support the Government of Saskatchewan (GoS) four-point plan – to recruit, train, incentivize and retain. Recruitment and retention of Saskatchewan physicians remains a priority for the Practitioner Staff Affairs (PSA) team.  The SHA also continues to work with the MoH as they establish a new Saskatchewan Healthcare Recruitment Agency on behalf of the GoS.  PSA is partnering with SHA Human Resource (HR) teams to explore the development of HHR forecasting models. 

Throughout Quarter 2 and Quarter 3, the office of the CMO reappointed the practitioner staff using a standardized SHA provincial process in accordance with the Bylaws. 2,837 practitioners across the province were successfully reappointed to the practitioner staff for a two-year term. The team is proud of this accomplishment while also planning process improvements to support practitioners, physician leaders and the PSA team.

Other Items of Note

  • Review of the SHA Internal Audit charter: The Audit, Finance and Risk Committee (AFRC) provides oversight of the internal audit function of the SHA on behalf of the Board. Best practice includes an annual review of the Internal Audit charter of which the current charter was last amended in February 2020. The SHA Board endorsed the Internal Audit charter (February 2020) as presented with no changes required.

  • Office of the Provincial Auditor Annual Audit Plan: Under Canadian Auditing Standards, and the terms of reference of the Saskatchewan Health Authority’s (SHA) Audit, Finance and Risk Committee (AFRC), the AFRC meets with the external auditor to obtain and review necessary information regarding the auditor’s approach and strategy for the annual audit of the financial statements of the SHA. This Committee met with Office of the Provincial Auditor (OPA) in November, 2022 to review the Annual Audit plan containing information on audit objectives, management responsibilities, approach, key audit areas and risks, draft reports, timelines, key contacts and other relevant information to conduct the year-end audit. The Audit Plan is similar to last year with some updated sections including a new section for assessing the reasonableness of the Authority’s assessment of control related to Extendicare transfer agreements. The SHA Board approved the Office of the Provincial Auditor’s Annual Audit Plan as presented.

  • Designated Assets for Reporting Purposes: Designated assets are assets that have been formally designated by the Authority to indicate the Authority's intention to use those assets for a specific purpose. Under Public Sector Accounting Standards (PSAS), the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) Board must formally designate these assets on an annual basis. Management recommended that assets be designated for Ministry of Health (MoH) and Alberta Health Services (AHS) capital funding, unspent donations, and Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) reserves for the 2022-23 fiscal year. The SHA Board designated the aforementioned assets as presented.

  • Safety Charter Annual Review: On May 29, 2019 the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) signed a Safety Charter to publicly declare its commitment to the physical, psychological, social, cultural, and environmental safety for all individuals. The Safety Charter requires annual review and ongoing endorsement by the SHA Board. The primary objective of the safety charter is to provide leadership and guidance as to the actions and behaviors required to advance a culture of safety and continuous improvement. The SHA Board endorsed the Safety Charter as presented with the removal of interim from the CEO signature.

  • Saskatchewan Health Authority General Bylaws Bi-Annual Review: The Minister of Health established the initial set of SHA General Bylaws (Bylaws) as outlined in The Provincial Health Authority Act (Act)[1]. The Board adopted the Bylaws that were established by the Minister of Health on December 4, 2017. This year, the Bylaws and Code of Conduct were reviewed by the Governance & Human Resources Committee and were approved by the SHA Board as presented.

 

[1] The Provincial Health Authority Act, s. 6-1(2)