Leadership & Innovation
Toronto Star Sings Praises of Mary Jo Haddad, New Head of Sick Kids
Toronto Star reports on the challenges faced by new president and CEO of the Hospital for Sick Children, Mary Jo Haddad, in “Passionate Advocate Heads Sick Kids” ( March 19, 2005 ). Haddad, alumnus of HPME (MHSc Class of '98) and Adjunct Faculty, graduated from Windsor 's St. Clair College in nursing in 1976. She completed a Bachelor's in Nursing before working her way up through the nursing ranks at Sick Kids. Haddad wants to ensure that children's health services are not lost in the shuffle of government restructuring of hospital and primary care. “I want to make sure that children's needs and cares are on the top of everyone's agenda,” Haddad said. “It's not. It certainly is on the top of ours.” Haddad is the hospital's third president in the past five years, replacing Alan Gayer as interim president last August and moving into the permanent position in November 2004.
Jo Mapa Leads Accountability Workshop at AHP Conference
The 2005 Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP) Conference, “Health Care in Bloom…Nurturing your Knowledge!” , will be held on May 14-16 in Ottawa, Ontario. In this year's Leadership Forum, leaders in hospital fundraising will be joined by Presidents and Vice Presidents of Canadian Hospitals. HPME Adjunct Faculty Joseph Mapa (MHSc Class of '77), President and CEO of Mount Sinai Hospital, will lead the discussion on accountability, balanced scorecards and how hospitals are being scrutinized and evaluated. For more information about the conference, see the website: www.ahpcanada.com/2005conference/welcome.htm.
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 Marsha Barnes, Director of the Primary Health Care and Physician Policy Branch, Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (MHSc, Class of '81).
Marsha Barnes – Leading the Way in Primary Health Care Renewal
If, like me, you recently registered yourself as a patient of a capitated Family Health Team, you may owe thanks to Marsha Barnes. As Director of the Primary Health Care and Physician Policy Branch from 2003 to present, Marsha has led primary health care renewal in Ontario. She led the implementation of 6 pilot projects in primary health care around the province in collaboration with the Ontario Medical Association (OMA), featuring capitation or reformed fee for service, extensive computerization of physician offices, multidisciplinary primary care teams and group governance for each group to allocate its funding autonomously according to local needs.
Though she has in the past been very involved in the legislative process (drafting the Independent Health Facilities Act for Minister Elinor Caplan and ADM Martin Barkin between 1989 and 1993), Marsha prefers to work behind the scenes. She has excelled at problem solving, networking and working with stakeholders. Her fine negotiating skills were put to good use, for example, in the recent successful negotiation between the OMA and the Ministry. Other key achievements have been the development and implementation of the Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Program and of the Regional Consulting Paediatrician Program. As well, she obtained and implemented $213 million of Federal funding under the Primary Health Care Transition Fund.
Marsha has enjoyed working with politicians, admiring the commitment that underlies both their very long hours and their exposing themselves to public scrutiny. She deplores the stereotype of the ‘bureaucratic' civil service: her colleagues are bright, talented, hardworking people who find their work compelling and are proud of what they do. She is committed to her consultative role as a civil servant: “It's our job to be careful about the use of public funds and to make the best recommendations that we can to the government”. The pace of change can be slow, but “it is slow for a reason”.
Marsha's 'interest-based' bargaining tools encourage each side in a negotiation to articulate its own needs and work at developing an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect, identifying common ground and strengthening their ongoing problem-solving relationship which is needed for successful implementation of what is negotiated.
Right out of the gate from her BSc in Health Studies [Waterloo, 1979] Marsha sought a career as a health planner. After the MHSc degree in Health Administration, then a full-time two year program, she worked at the Toronto District Health Council (DHC) for its first five years.
Frustrated that "the government wasn't listening to [the DHC's] wonderful reports", she next sought out a position in government, where she soon learned that it was not so simple to "make things happen", that government had to consider multiple political impacts and secure the buy-in of multiple stakeholders in order to move any agenda forward.
If Marsha Barnes had a motto, it might be "I love learning". After almost 20 years in the Ministry she says with enthusiasm, “I have never stopped learning since coming here …I meet with so many professionals, researchers, sit on inter-provincial committees, learn from others' experiences, successes … I love taking courses, meeting people from other places and learning how they are doing things. It is especially stimulating to bring students in here – we have a U of T student here right now."