If there’s been one constant in Rose Harrison’s career, it’s been the aspiration to improve health-care systems and—ultimately—patient care. VCH’s executive director of Medical and Academic Affairs made the case for just that at VPSA’s most recent Dinner with Leaders event on June 9. The session was organized by our Community Building & Wellness Task Group and hosted by Dr. Fahreen Dossa.

Ms. Harrison outlined her career path, which was heavily influenced by her New Brunswick roots and the values her down-to-Earth Quebecois grandfather instilled. Her interest in health care took her to the University of Waterloo, where she completed a Bachelor of Science in health studies. She next pursued a certificate in Leadership Strategies for Information Systems in Healthcare from Harvard. She followed that up with an MBA from Queen’s.

Ms. Harrison then found herself in Calgary working on its health region’s first patient care information system. It was there that she had her first physician dyad partner, a relationship that she credits as instrumental in understanding the strength that comes from such partnerships. The multi-hospital 40-member interdisciplinary core clinical design team created an EMR system that won the 2007 American Medical Directors of Informatics award for outstanding clinician engagement and system adoption achievement.

Several other career advances followed including experiences south of the border (Pasadena and Seattle) as well as in Alberta and Kelowna. Ms. Harrison’s focuses included EMR implementations and digital health strategies, as well as physician engagement and leadership development.

In April 2024, she joined VCH in her current role, where she works closely with the Interim Vice President of Medicine, Dr. Chad Kim Sing. (The two made a presentation at the most recent VMDAS quarterly meeting.) She and Dr. Kim Sing firmly believe that high quality medical care cannot be separated from medical staff wellness and engagement. Ms. Harrison shared that throughout her career she has always followed the same formula: R = (L x P x C)^s or Results equal Leaders times People we hire times the Culture we create to the power of Systems we use. She concluded with a PowerPoint slide showing the core functions of a high-performing VP of medicine portfolio that she and Dr. Kim Sing have identified and emphasized that both want to work closely with medical staff to realize their goals.

Dr. Harrison took questions from session attendees regarding talent engagement and planning and alternative fee schedules, on ways to better support junior leaders working on the frontlines, and best ways to use funding to improve engagement with medical staff. She provided some thought-provoking comments and emphasized the need for courageous conversations. She reiterated her desire to speak directly with physicians about their ideas and emphasized that partnerships bring about the most successful results.

Member feedback

Five of the thirty people attending the session completed the post-event survey. Of those, 80 per cent agreed that the event had succeeded in its goal of creating a better understanding of Ms. Harrison’s role at VCH and how it provides support to, and engages with, medical staff. The session received a net promotor score of 50 per cent.

Comments included:

• Very impressed with Rose. Intelligent, well informed, well intentioned, experienced and ethical. Also, engaging, authentic and good communicator. There is hope for us all!
• It is really nice to hear more about our leaders as people as we only know them in a professional context otherwise.
• Seemed a lot of systems talk. Wondering about the action and tangible next steps.