Michelle E. DiEmanuele is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Trillium Health Partners, Ontario’s largest community academic hospital system, which consists of the Credit Valley Hospital, the Mississauga Hospital, and the Queensway Health Centre. Throughout her career, she has continuously advocated for social transformation in both the public and private healthcare sectors. Michelle is also in the hall of fame of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women. As a former Associate Secretary of Cabinet and Deputy Minister in the Government of Ontario, she aims to use her extensive experience to improve the healthcare system from a political perspective. During an online interview, Michelle described her role as a leader as well as her aspirations for the future of Canada’s health care system.
“At Trillium Health Partners, we serve 1.7 million people each year. We have 10,000 staff and volunteers, and 1,300 professional staff. We deliver almost 9,000 babies each year, and each of our hospitals have major regional services such as stroke, cardiac and cancer care. I am keenly interested in the importance of culture and leadership in creating high performing service organizations.
Moreover, every patient interaction is profound and impactful in some way. What stands out most are the interactions when there has been a less than satisfactory outcome or a preventable harm. In these moments, I am humbled by the patients and families’ true forgiveness and desire to have us learn and improve.
Currently, there are too many governance structures and individual service providers, like doctors, agencies, not-for-profit organizations, etc. They are all making a valuable contribution but they need to be consolidated in a more coherent way to reduce bottleneck, be more patient friendly, and ultimately be more effective and efficient – not unlike many accountable care organizations around the world.
One area [in the Canadian health care system] that we must change is our actions when treating those with mental and physical illnesses. We try to separate the mind from the body in health care and yet there is a significant inter-relationship. The first thing to do is train all those working in health care differently, with a focus on treating the whole person.”
Comments