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Centre Stage:

Carol Annett, CEO of VHA Home HealthCare

As part of our new membership benefit package and our ongoing commitment to collaboration, we are giving impassioned improvers within the Network centre stage. We would like to get to know the faces of your organization. If you have a member that should get centre stage, let us know.

"I think my role is to be the champion of quality, set high standards and expect only the best from every staff person."

I’m Carol Annett. I joined VHA in 1999. VHA is a not for profit, accredited, provider of home care services. Providers in Ontario must compete for contracts issued by the Community Care Access Centres (CCACs). I was initially recruited to the organization to help win these competitions but also to develop other new business and services as well as a robust quality management program. Since 2004 I’ve been the CEO of VHA.

Specifically, we provide nursing and personal support and homemaking services across the GTA and in Southwestern Ontario. We serve all ages, cradle to grave, with a wide range of illnesses and disabilities. Everything from the acute care patient discharged home from hospital with a wound that needs daily dressing, to a palliative care patient that needs round the clock care in the end stages of life. It’s an organization with its roots in homemaking that’s been around since 1925. We currently have over 1200 employees. We have an extremely diverse workforce, with over 40 language and dialects.

We are also a proud United Way member agency. We have a number of community support programs for people that aren’t eligible for government funded services or can’t afford to pay for them. Some of these services include respite care for families at risk, programs that prevent evictions and homelessness and provide homemaking for the mentally ill. We have a real variety of charitable programs that meet the needs of marginalized people who are very vulnerable.

“Home care is not simply a cheap alternative to hospital or institutional care. I believe strongly that it is a vital component of the whole healthcare system.”

I am extremely passionate about home care, because I think it is undervalued in our country. For me, the drive is that we need to help society as a whole, recognize the value of home care so people can live and die, if they choose, in their own homes and in their own communities. To me it’s meeting such a basic need, but it truly is not appreciated. It has not been well resourced or given the attention that it needs and deserves.

But there are great rays of hope. One of these is Ontario's Aging at Home Strategy, an initiative announced as part of the liberal election platform. I am very optimistic more people will have access to the supports they need to remain at home, but it’s hard not to feel that home care is still only the fly on the elephant that somehow must get its wings stronger and beating faster to make the difference required.

"I think whatever we can do to shore up families, shore up their capacity, support and sustain them to provide care for their loved ones, is critical."

Home care really rests on the backs of family and friends who provide the bulk of needed supports. Professional care is tiny in comparison. Anything we can do to reduce the burden of care that they are shouldering is absolutely critical.

I’d also say I’m passionate about health equity. I think our job, and certainly as a charitable organization, our mandate is to advocate for those at the margins. Here at VHA we really look to develop programs for those that are marginalized, those that are most vulnerable: the mentally ill, homeless or underhoused, newcomers to Canada, those living in poverty – anyone that lives at the margins. I think we have an obligation to meet their needs and ensure that they have access to healthcare services like anyone else in our community.

“Quality improvement is integral to our line of work. Whatever we are doing needs to be of the highest standard of quality and excellence because the people we serve deserve that.”

In home care we also compete on quality. To me that is the bedrock of our service. It is also one of these never-ending processes; you can always do something better, something different, and something more efficiently. So to me it should be our unwavering focus. But also in a competitive environment, it’s absolutely critical because to be successful you need to be at the top of your game, at the top of your service. It is a differentiating factor. It is where you can find uniqueness as an organization. I think my role is to be the champion of quality, set high standards and expect only the best from every staff person.

I think my job is also to help create a culture that isn’t afraid of making mistakes, isn’t afraid of failing and taking risks. And not for profits tend to be very risk averse. I don’t see how anyone can learn or can improve quality if they are not willing to try new things, make mistakes, admit them, learn from them and plough on. That’s easier said then done because we are all risk averse to some degree or another. None of us like to fail.

My job is to allow us to take risks and then continually instill hope in people. There are lots of problems, but we’ll find solutions. Leaders need to be relentlessly positive. To help contain the chaos and help people focus where they will have the greatest impact.

"Leadership is a shared job. And I mean shared at all levels of the organization…I truly believe the more leaders you have in your organization the better."

I see leadership as having a positive influence on whatever it is you’re involved in. My job is to create a workplace culture where people can excel, people can do their very best. I think my job is to first of all create the conditions that will foster a culture that is nimble, agile, flexible, willing to take risks, and has an unwavering focus on quality improvement.

I also think leadership is a shared job. And I mean shared at all levels of the organization. It means sharing power and control, helping both staff and board be strong, be healthy, be engaged. I believe the more leaders you have spread throughout your organization the better.

"Just as it is the CEO’s role to nurture and support staff, the CEO has to nurture, support and engage volunteer board members."

It starts from the recruitment of diverse and talented people. Sometimes what happens is that talented people come on boards and then their talents aren’t used. They don’t find meaningful roles within the board. I see it is part of my job to ensure that each board member has a vital role to play.

I’ve always worked with fabulous boards. And I have great respect for their varied talents and what they have to offer, as well as the provocative questions they put to management that helps pull us out of the muck we find ourselves in from time to time.

If you don’t use them, if you don’t build a strategic and strong board, then what are they there for? It is their diverse range of skills, perspectives, networks, that can really help the organization and its mission.

I think you also need to educate and inform your board, so they can be responsible stewards. Frequently at our meetings we do some kind of mini-education with our board. You can’t expect boards to contribute if you don’t support them to be ongoing learners too.

“It is even more important for organizations like ours, to reach out to networks like QHN, where sharing is the mandate.”

VHA joined QHN in 1999. We were interested in meeting others who were passionate about quality, but also interested in the opportunity to exchange ideas, learn new ways of thinking and doing. Becoming a member of QHN meant access to knowledge, best practices and learning both practical tools and techniques that we could use.

I think because of managed competition, people in our sector haven’t been as open to sharing and home care has suffered from that. It is even more important for organizations like ours to reach out to networks like QHN where sharing is the mandate.

“Over the past nine years, membership has granted us access to new knowledge, new tools, techniques and connections.”

We have been very satisfied with what QHN membership has given our organization and its staff. QHN facilitates the connections to people struggling with the same issues or to those that have solutions to offer. In the network, we are not only allowed, but also encouraged to ‘steal shamelessly’.
I also really think that Cynthia and her team run the best conferences. They offer a wonderful model of high quality programming. They go out of their way to delight their customers. I’ve always gone away from QHN conferences impressed and so have my staff that attended. I believe QHN lives out their mission and their values in the program and product offerings they deliver.

Carol is a social worker by trade, and has an MBA from York’s Schulich School of Business. In her spare time, she mentors MBA students with a focus on not-for-profit/healthcare, snowboards, finds quality time for her family and friends and has recently become a CCHSA surveyor.

 

Centre Stage Index

To view past profiles of impassioned improvers within the Network, click the one that you want to read.

December, 2007, Gordon Milak from Southwest Community Care Access Centre, London, Ontario

January, 2008, Glenna Raymond from Whitby Mental Health Centre, Whitby, Ontario

February, 2008, Michael Heenan from St. Joseph’s Healthcare, Hamilton, Ontario

Spring, 2008, Carol Annett from CEO of VHA Home HealthCare, Ontario

Summer, 2008, Ben Chan, CEO, Ontario Health Quality Council