Sandy Critchley

Background

About Sandy Critchley

After 20 years in the health care sector, I’ve developed my own style of courageous leadership to shape empowered teams and build momentum towards unified goals. With COVID-19 wreaking havoc on the health care system, I am extremely proud of the adaptability, resiliency, and prompt yet thoughtful response my teams demonstrated. Faced with rapidly changing regulations, PPE shortages, and a fear of the unknown, I focused on creating safe psychological spaces through trust, transparency, empathy, and vulnerability which enabled us to persevere. With my prior experience in emergency preparedness along with our strong community ties, here’s a snapshot of what we were able to achieve at Headwaters Health Care Centre: Partnered with community stakeholders to get COVID-19 drive-through assessment centre up and running within 10 days, enabling >550 daily tests and becoming the exemplary model for adoption across the province. Established a COVID-19 assessment booking system within 48 hours, evolving it from a rudimentary call centre to a web-based, self-scheduling system. Implemented ethical decision-making frameworks and leveraged community networks to overcome vaccine shortages and promptly secure doses for staff, physicians, vulnerable populations. Our success navigating COVID-19 stemmed from existing patient safety, risk management, and quality improvement initiatives I was directing, giving us a strong foundation to work off. For instance, I’ve always placed a strong emphasis on moving from measurement to management. Data tells a story, so I make it a priority to create and monitor metrics, allowing us to identify trends and pinpoint areas for improvement. Embedding the patient voice in every aspect of the organization is also vitally important, which enables us to learn, reflect, improve, and acknowledge the personal experiences of patients and their families. And… let’s not forget the role technology can play in advancing care and streamlining processes! As the only Canadian hospital to combine Integrated Bedside Terminals with the hospital information system―which allowed care providers to document and share patient information bedside―I’m committed to shepherding Canadian health care into the future: Strategic Planning & Operations; Change Management; Patient Experience & Engagement; Partnership Development; Policy & Procedure Development; Quality Indicators; Data Tracking & Analysis; Process Improvement; Workflow Optimization; Risk Management; Project Management