FINDING THE POSITIVES
Health authority CEO eager to refocus priorities on other services, apply new knowledge
“Me? I'm feeling like everyone else: Anxious,” Saskatchewan Health Authority CEO Scott Livingstone said.
“Every day (I'm) getting up, taking a look at what the numbers are going to present to us, and generally being worried about staff and our response.”
Livingstone is the head of a nascent health authority with 43,000 staff squaring off against a global pandemic.
The SHA formed in 2017 from 12 former health regions. It turned three years old on Dec. 4, and has spent about a quarter of its life fighting COVID-19.
Livingstone took a moment to tell Postmedia about his year, what the SHA has learned and what he hopes it will become once the pandemic is done.
On amalgamation of the 12 former health regions:
The pandemic has come amid ongoing work to turn 12 organizations into one.
Livingstone says, if anything, the heat of COVID-19 has forged stronger bonds between the former health regions.
“It's interesting, because you'd think that it would be something that would potentially slow us down, right? But I think the opposite is true. I think because of COVID, it has moved forward more operational operations between teams across the province, focusing on that provincial picture, rather than those older styles and moulds that we fit ourselves in.”
On the lessons of the pandemic:
Livingstone says the SHA has always had relationships with private care homes, prisons, group homes and the like, but the pandemic forced it to expand on those partnerships, and even deploy different teams into unfamiliar settings when outbreaks were declared.
“COVID-19 has forced some of these silos down, and also helped us strengthen our collaboration together,” he said.
On long-term care:
Livingstone says the province's long-term care system, where some of the most deadly outbreaks have been recorded, needs to change.
“Even the term `long-term care,' the immediate response is that's somebody who is institutionalized in a facility. We try to communicate that this is actually somebody's home, and they need to be treated like it's their home.
“During the pandemic, my mom was moved into long-term care. And as a family we've been through that change. And it's a big one, right?” he added. “She's in good hands, and there's lots of relief for us. There's safety. We know that there's somebody there watching her 24/7 and taking care of her. But at the same time, when we reflect back ... how do we support people and allow them to live their lives as fully as possible and as independently as possible?”
On health care post-pandemic:
The pandemic has fast-tracked the evolution of telemedicine. Doctors in Saskatchewan can now securely speak to patients across the province with the touch of a button. It's not perfect, Livingstone said, and doesn't replace an in-person visit. But he wants it to stick around.
“If I'm worried about anything, it's how do we move forward on the important gains we made,” he said.
“It's something we just can't let go to the wayside.”
On the recovery:
“It's not just about catching up on those services that we've been unable to provide fully through the pandemic,” Livingstone said.
“How do we really take the opportunity to take these learnings and transform the system? We learned really early on in the pandemic that if you create a team and you give them the runway to solve that problem, they can solve in weeks what it would take us months to do in a normal environment.”
What he's looking forward to:
“The way in which the people inside the organization have responded — that right now, that keeps me up without having a rest,” he said. “We do have a lot ahead of us ... but I think we're going to come out of this a stronger organization at the end of it.”