Our strategy is a reflection of who we are and where we are heading. It has been developed with our key stakeholders and is our commitment to the community. This plan puts the users of our service at the forefront of everything we do: Every Patient, Every Resident, Every Client, Every Time. Our board and executive are proud of the commitment of our staff in continuing to deliver excellence in healthcare.
NHW Strategic Plan 2020-2025.pdf [size 970kb]
NHW Strategic Plan on a Page 2020-2025.pdf [size 140kb]
Our history
Northeast Health Wangaratta was first established on our current site in 1872. Through decades of commitment, connection, investment, and the passion of our community and region, a district base hospital evolved into today’s modern health service of NHW. Today, the hospital is the largest employer in North East Victoria and employs over 1,500 people across our region. We also engage more than 340 volunteers, who are a critical part of both our team and our community. We operate an extensive range of healthcare services and supports for people of all ages living in North East Victoria. We deliver our services from our sites in Wangaratta, in people’s homes and, more recently, through telehealth with our healthcare partners and in the community.
Our role in the region
We are a specialist health service in North East Victoria, providing quality care to more than 90,000 people across the broader North East region including Bright,
Mansfield, Beechworth, Myrtleford, Yarrawonga, and Benalla. We operate a 24/7 emergency department and deliver an extensive range of healthcare services
including our residential aged care facility, Illoura. NHW is a healthcare provider, a local employer, an educator, an innovator, an advocate, and a regional partner and leader. We recognise and embrace a regional approach to caring for our community, and recognise its social diversity and the impact it has on health. Our services are developed and delivered to meet the specific health needs of our community. We operate as part of a network, brought to life through meaningful
partnerships across North East Victoria and further afield. These partnerships enable collaborative support for patients, and shared resources and knowledge.
Our new Strategic Plan
Our strategy has been developed with and alongside our Board, team, community and partners from across North East Victoria and beyond. Through a blend of workshops, interviews and research we have had the opportunity to reflect, innovate and create a direction and framework for NHW for the next five years.
This strategy provides
- A foundation for all stakeholders to understand what we are looking to achieve over the next five years, how we will prioritise our actions to achieve it and the aspirations we have for our community;
- A framework to inform our strategic decisions and our annual operational, workforce and clinical plans; and
- A tool for enhancing and fostering new relationships across our region.
The next five years are about providing leadership in the transformation of our healthcare service, while continuing to deliver high quality, safe care. This strategic plan sets out our aspirations and priorities, and how we will deliver on these through being collaborative, bold, innovative and responsive to the opportunities and challenges ahead. Over the next five years, we will work towards our four core pillars and priorities, which are underpinned by 20 focussed actions. We recognise that our strategic actions will continue to evolve over the next five years so they remain fit-for-purpose, and drive our vision and purpose.
The year 2020 has been a defining year for us all, with the COVID-19 pandemic requiring us to change how we provide healthcare in our community and how our healthcare will be delivered into the future. As a consequence, change and reform throughout the Victorian health system is inevitable. NHW will embrace this change and with greater integration, consolidation and transformation of our health service, along with forging closer partnerships with health services within the Hume Region.
Our drivers for change, and the many opportunities we will embrace over five years of the Strategy include:
- Being responsive: As an agile and flexible service, we can effectively respond to the changing and growing needs within our community.
- Focus on wellness: We will reduce the burden of disease and injury in our community through increased focus on wellness, early intervention and prevention that go beyond what we do today.
- Leverage digital: Integrating and applying digital infrastructure will enable us to make better decisions, increase equitable access, enable collaboration and drive efficiencies, supporting better outcomes for the community.
- Be transformative: We will put new and enhanced approaches and models of care in place that address and respond to need, without compromising on our quality, safety and financial viability.
- Collaborate and integrate: Exploring, initiating and strengthening our collaborations is essential to our success, including going beyond what partnership looks like today so our organisation, our region and the health system is more connected, sustainable and resilient.
- Connect and reconnect with community: We will continue to work closely with our community, so that they inform and shape our approach, as well as trust and understand us and our services.
Our plan provides the pathway to seize opportunities and tackle these challenges to ensure we are providing the very best healthcare in our community, for our community and with our community:
Through our Vision –the future we aspire to create: Thriving communities in North East Victoria, achieving the best quality of life for everyone.
Through our Purpose –the part we play in creating that future: To be leaders in health, who transform and deliver high quality, safe healthcare for all.
Through our Values and Beliefs – which guide and inform our decisions and behaviours every day:
- Courage: Boldness and bravery are required to meet the needs of our community – this means going above and beyond what we do today.
- Excellence: Quality is non-negotiable. We believe in ourselves – we have the vision, skills and determination to innovate and drive excellence.
- Fairness: We believe that everyone has the right to equitable, inclusive, accessible healthcare, and that this is vital for a flourishing community.
- Integrity: We commit to being open and ethical in all our actions, and ensuring we have a positive culture defined by commitment.
- Kindness: We will always support one another, care deeply about our community, team and partners, and treat each and every person with kindness and compassion.
- Respect: We believe in not only listening but hearing, responding to and advocating for those we care for and about. We believe in and commit to trust and mutual understanding.
Through our Roles –the distinct roles we provide with our people, in our community, region and beyond:
- We are a healthcare provider: Committed to the provision of equitable, accessible, high quality and safe healthcare.
- We are an employer: Which supports, grows and empowers its people to deliver.
- We are an educator: Conducting research, and sharing its knowledge and experience internally and externally, within the health sector, the region and beyond.
- We are an innovator: Developing and enhancing new models of care, practice and other solutions that will see tangible outcomes for NHW and more broadly.
- We are an advocate: Representing the needs of our team, community and region at a range of forums, with consideration to both current and future healthcare needs.
- We are a partner and leader: Actively leading opportunities to collaborate and develop meaningful partnerships that will share resources and expertise, reduce duplication and ultimately drive better outcomes for communities.
Through our Strategic Pillars – are the domains that the different areas of our activity aligns to:
- Access to safe and high quality care
- Engaged people and culture
- Sustainable and enduring resources
- Collaboration and partnerships
Through our Priorities – where we will focus over the next five years to deliver on our Vision & Purposes:
- Healthcare defined by safety and high quality that goes beyond responsive treatment and has a focus on wellness and healthy ageing;
- A skilled, inclusive and engaged team with the capacity, capability and expertise to deliver exceptional care for the diverse needs of our community;
- A health service that invests in, develops and embeds the physical and digital infrastructure that will enhance our healthcare and realise better models of care;
- An environmentally and financially sustainable organisation through innovation, pragmatism and responsiveness;
- A trusted organisation with deep links to our community, region and beyond; and
- An integrated, consolidated and transformed health sector that will enhance healthcare for our community.