Dear Colleagues,
I'm writing to welcome our new staff from Toronto Rehab. Straight Talk is now being distributed to all of our sites via e-mail and I would encourage people to print off and post if that helps get the information out to all of your colleagues. We also post each Straight Talk on the UHN intranet and on the public website behind the For Staff button so it is easily accessible; this Straight Talk will also be posted on the TRI Intranet site. It is one of the ways that I keep people informed about things that are relevant to the whole organization. I can't think of anything that is more significant than welcoming everyone at Toronto Rehab to the UHN family.
Last week Mark Rochon took me on a whirlwind tour of all the Toronto Rehab sites and I will be back throughout July and August to spend more time so that I can meet as many people as possible, talk about what makes you passionate about your work and give you the opportunity to tell me about ways you'd like to improve patient care. It is an exciting time and also a time when we'll need to be patient with each other as we learn new things, work to integrate systems, and figure out the best way of helping patients and family members transition between and amongst our sites. I will rely on Sue Jewell and Gaetan Tardif to give me counsel on clinical and site issues, and rely on Geoff Fernie for research concerns- they will tell me when I've got it wrong, and point out the things we should be working on as we become familiar with our new colleagues.
To begin, at Toronto Rehab, things will not feel much different than they did on June 30. The same policies are in place, the reporting relationship for almost all of you will not change and you will continue to provide excellent care within an interprofessional environment. As we go forward we will be looking at all of the things we need to integrate, but this will certainly take time and any changes will be well communicated in advance.
As an example of something that will change, but not yet—today you will be able to access UHN's intranet by clicking on the link on the top right-hand corner of the Toronto Rehab Intranet site. This will give you a chance to explore what's currently there but after some work, there will be one intranet site which will serve all of our internal needs. But, we're not there yet and it will take us some time to see what's on the Toronto Rehab intranet and what needs to be migrated. However, at the end of that process, we'll have one robust intranet site linking all of UHN.
To give you another example—until we've had a chance to look at all the policies and procedures, Toronto Rehab will continue to operate under the policies you have in place and we will take the time to blend all policies and procedures in to one place on the intranet.
So, welcome and I'm looking forward to the work, the opportunities and getting to know as many of you as I can over the summer. If you have questions or want to tell me something, please feel free to reply to this message. Just don't hit Reply All, or you'll be in touch with about 8,000 of your new colleagues. (And going forward, you can always reach me at WhatYouToldUs@uhn.on.ca.)
Bob
