The new year marks the fourth anniversary of the creation of Sinai Health System. This year will mark another important milestone for our organization. We are launching a system-wide set of activities to introduce and define Sinai Health’s shared Purpose and Values.
As with any large organization, we have a clearly stated mission, vision, purpose, and values. On a daily basis, purpose and values are easily the most important of these core concepts, particularly for those of us inside the organization. Explicitly stating our purpose and values is crucial in so many ways. The people who work, learn, and volunteer at Sinai Health know what makes this place special, but we have to put it into words to have a shared understanding and ensure we perpetuate this in all we do. Stating our values allows us to recruit people who align with those values, gives us a yardstick to measure our performance against, and gives all of us a description of the behaviours that we all must strive for. Values are lived every day which is why this work is so important.
What about the values that we currently have? When Sinai Health was initially created, we established a mission and vision that are more relevant than ever in driving our future. At the same time, a set of values to launch our new enterprise were identified. Four years later we are very much one organization and it is time to engage everyone in our purpose and define values in a fundamentally different way. Our shared Purpose and Values will be the essence of who we are as Sinai Health System.
Over the last four months multiple groups, including employees, physicians, scientists, volunteers and patient and family caregiver advisors, have been discovering the words to describe our purpose and values. We believe the Purpose and Values that came from sessions with these groups are inclusive and, we believe, representative of what we stand for as a leading health care organization.
Now it’s your turn! We are excited to share the outcomes and get your input on the work we have completed on our proposed Purpose and Values. At the end of January, we will be hosting multiple Open Houses for you to learn more and be part of defining Sinai Health’s shared Purpose and Values. Invitations are making their way throughout the organization.
These Open Houses are the principal method of engaging everyone in this work. We need broad and deep input from all of the people who make up Sinai Health to assure that we have stated shared Purpose and Values that are true to us. I am counting on each of you to come by one of the Open Houses, share your perspective and have an opportunity to shape our future.
Regards,
Gary