Our Strategy: Shaping the Future of Quality and Safety. Together.

To shape a future where everyone in Canada has safe and high-quality healthcare.

Find and promote innovators and innovations

• Identify promising innovations that can deliver the safest and highest quality healthcare for more people in Canada. (e.g. Priority Health Innovation Challenge and Call for Innovations to manage chronic pain for children)
• Raise awareness of these innovations to spark further improvement in healthcare policies and practices. (e.g. Enhanced Recovery Canada)

Drive rapid adoption and spread of quality and safety innovations

• Lead partnerships to spread and scale innovations that deliver excellence in healthcare in our areas of focus (e.g. Virtual Care Together collaborative with Canada Health Infoway and Advancing Frailty Care in the Community Collaborative).
• Co-design, test and share tools for implementing safe and high-quality healthcare with patients, providers and other healthcare leaders (e.g. Patient Engagement Resource Hub).
• Share these tools widely to benefit more people in Canada.

Build capabilities to enable excellence in healthcare

• Work with leaders and teams across Canada to enhance their ability to make improvements and sustain them (e.g. EXTRA program and TeamSTEPPS Canada™).
• Connect leaders across communities and health systems to share, learn, and improve together (e.g. Canadian Northern and Remote Health Network).

Catalyze policy change

• Guided by perspectives of people with diverse experiences and cultures, foster learning and relationship building to advance cultural safety and humility,¹ equity and inclusion in health systems (e.g. Promoting Life Together Collaborative).
• Support leaders to share policy insights, identify levers for change and drive large-scale change (e.g. Essential Together Policy Guidance).
• Work with partners – including other pan-Canadian health organizations – to advance shared federal, provincial and territorial health priorities (e.g. Paramedics and Palliative Care program with the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer. 

Innovation: A practice, policy or program that yields 

greater benefit for people compared to the status quo

Our Focus

Care of older adults with health and social needs

It’s time to reimagine care with – and for – older adults. New policies and ways of organizing and providing care/services that improve outcomes by better integrating health and social care (e.g. LTC+). 

Care closer to home and community with safe transitions

Many people in Canada want safe, high-quality healthcare closer to home. Connection with a primary care provider, safe transitions and virtual options. The reach of innovations that equitably deliver care, where people live and when they need it, can be expanded (e.g. Bridge-to-Home Spread Collaborative).

Pandemic recovery and health system resilience

Health systems have responded to the pandemic with tremendous innovation, but COVID-19 has exposed gaps in both care and equity. Many people across the country are reporting high levels of mental distress, and healthcare workers are no exception. Together, we can not only recover from the effects of the pandemic, but also build more resilient, equitable and innovative ways of designing, funding and delivering care in the future (e.g. Spotlight Series).

Quality and Safety Perspectives

Lived experience of patients, caregivers and communities

Engaging patients, caregivers and communities, with purpose, to ensure their experience and priorities drive safety and quality in healthcare (e.g. Patients for Patient Safety Canada).

People in the workforce

Ensuring that those who provide care shape how we improve care so that the value of the change and the impact on their work-life is considered too (e.g. Mental health and Resiliency Resources for Healthcare Providers, Staff and Leaders).

Value

Organizing healthcare to improve patient and health system outcomes by focusing on what matters most to patients and linking money spent over a patient’s journey to the outcomes that matter most to them (e.g. Value-Based Healthcare Toolkit).

Culturally safe and equitable care

Support people working in health systems to address racism and power imbalances that foster security, avoid harm and distribute services according to need (e.g. A Journey We Walk Together: Indigenous Cultural Competency Primer.

First Nations, Inuit, and Métis priorities

Seeking and supporting meaningful engagement with First Nations, Inuit and Métis to ensure that their priorities drive reconciliation, quality and safety in healthcare (e.g. World Patient Safety 2021, Safe Maternal and Newborn Care).

Partner meaningfully

We can do more together than on our own. Within HEC and with partners, collaboration accelerates progress towards our shared goals.

Innovate courageously

We seek and promote bold ideas that deliver meaningful gains in the safety and quality of healthcare, as well as agile approaches to pursuing excellence at HEC.

Act with integrity

Credibility, honesty, and respect matter at HEC. We treat others the way we would like to be treated. Together, we build trust, make evidence-informed choices, and support mutual accountability.

Be inclusive

No matter what we look like or where we live, excellence in healthcare matters to everyone. Within HEC and in our work, we embrace diverse perspectives and the value of each person’s unique experiences.