Leadership & Innovation
Mary Jo Haddad Offers Five Ingredients of Leadership
Mary Jo Haddad, President and CEO of the Hospital for Sick Children, is often asked by young nurses what the secret is for becoming a successful, respected leader. In a profile published in Nursing Leadership (Vol.17, No.4, 2004), Mary Jo identifies five key points:
- Find passion in the work you do
- Stay true to yourself and committed to your values
- Be willing to be mentored and to mentor others
- Maintain a life-long commitment to learning
- Remain open to the opportunities that come your way.
To read more, see the complete article in Nursing Leadership at Longwoods Publishing. Mary Jo is Adjunct Lecturer and alumnus (Class of '98) of the Department of HPME.
Alumni Profiles
Alumni of the Department of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (HPME) are involved in a broad range of leadership activities across the health care sector. To promote greater awareness of the many accomplishments and innovations of this diverse group, we are pleased to include alumni profiles as a regular feature of the Society of Graduates newsletter.
This issue features Corinne Berinstein, former Internal Auditor at the Hospital for Sick Children and recent Supervisor at the Ontario Auditor-General's Office (MHSc, Class of '99).
Corinne Berinstein – Risk Manager
"The alternative to risk management is crisis management, and we all know how well that works"...
...said Corinne Berinstein when we met to discuss her activities at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.
Corinne represents the new face of risk management in health care. The richness and diversity of her training and experience have uniquely equipped her to lead “value for money” audits at Sick Kids, where she has been the Internal Auditor since 2001. Corinne will build on these experiences in her new position as Supervisor with the Ontario Auditor General's Office which she began in February 2005. The former Provincial Auditor has recently been given expanded powers in order to strengthen its transparency and accountability in the public sector. For the first time, the Auditor General will conduct value-for money audits of organizations in the broader public sector that receive provincial funding, including health care. Value for money audits examine how well the government's programs and activities are being managed and make recommendations on how to improve the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of operations. In Corinne's new role, she will oversee provincial health care audits.
Corinne's educational background includes an MBA from York University , a license as a Chartered Accountant and Certified Forensic Investigator and an MHSc degree from our own HPME. She has worked as a physiotherapist and as a project manager in both continuous quality improvement (at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario) and in clinical education (for the Council of Ontario Universities).
In her position as Internal Auditor with Sick Kids, Corinne was responsible for ensuring that the hospital was operating in compliance with applicable legislation, regulations, hospital by-law and policies and assuring the Board of the adequacy of the hospital's operational, financial, management and security controls. Corinne helped to introduce a new model of risk management which examines both clinical and corporate risks, and the controls that management has put in place to mange those risks. Previously the hospital internal audit function was solely financial. In the private sector, value can be read in a financial bottom line, while in health care risk management adds to the value of the product: safe, effective care for patients.
Corinne's combined theoretical understanding of her field and personable ability to connect with hospital personnel enabled her to work towards building a culture of transparency, accountability and risk management across the organization. As we sat in the hospital cafeteria for this interview, a constant stream of greetings and conversations with staff passersby testified to the web of relationships Corinne has built through the hospital.
Among the many benefits to the hospital of the enhanced risk management program developed under Corrine's leadership was its ability to respond swiftly and effectively to the SARS crisis. Having reviewed the hospital's security and other processes, senior leaders were able to implement the necessary controls and procedures to limit risk to an acceptable level.
Risk management in health care has undergone shifts from a discipline-specific to an enterprise-wide model. Based on an annual hospital-wide risk assessment, Corinne identified the top ten organizational risks. These risks clustered around corporate risks (human resources, financial, etc) and patient care/safety. Corinne's experience with enterprise-wide risk management within a large health care organization will be invaluable as she takes on the much larger project of overseeing audits of all provincial expenditures on health in Ontario.
Good luck, Corinne!