Healthcare Insurance Reciprocal of Canada (HIROC)

Happy Holidays, from all of us at HIROC. 2024 has been another very full and inspiring year. In meeting with Subscribers at HIROC and partner events across the country, I see how hard all of you are working to ensure safe, quality care for Canadians. Thank you for opening your doors and sharing your work with HIROC so that we can scale innovation widely. And perhaps more importantly, thank you for all you do!   This holiday season, I absolutely hope you can take a moment for fun, self-care, and joy. HOLIDAY CARD FUN This year the team had some fun with our holiday card design. We put the challenge out to HIROC staff to draft and design our Subscriber card. We received some cool entries and so many words of praise for our Subscribers. The card you see below was inspired by a very creative colleague in our Healthcare Safety and Risk Management department – thank you Chiharu Usami, CHIM! And you'll get to see some of those words of thanks in an upcoming holiday campaign on our socials. Stay tuned! DECEMBER PODCAST EPISODE OUT NOW But it's not just HIROC staff who are creative, as you’ll hear in my year-end message on HIROC's Healthcare Change Makers podcast – listen below. I am also inspired by the creativity and the talent of those who work in our healthcare system. In this episode, Philip De Souza and I talk about some of the projects we've seen come through the HIROC Safety Grants Program – what Subscribers can do with this grant money is absolutely incredible. Philip also gets me talking about my puppy, Parker. If you’ve got some time on the drive home, have a listen: https://lnkd.in/g8kT-BQB Have a lovely holiday. Catherine Gaulton

HIGHLIGHTS FROM A HIROC EMPLOYEE’S EXPERIENCE As many of you can probably tell, the HIROC employee experience is quite unique. Whether it’s a longer tenured employee or someone who just started, we often hear (and share right here on this channel) about their learning and the impact HIROC employees have on the healthcare system. This is just one example from a recent contract employee, Gillian Brandon-Hart. Gill shared her talents with the team at HIROC to cover a parental leave. Here’s Gill’s experience in her own words: I’ve been lucky enough to work at HIROC over the past 15 months as part of the Communications and Marketing Team, and it has been an incredible experience. I’ve had the chance to participate in exciting projects, attend insightful events, and meet and work alongside many incredibly talented people. As my time at HIROC ends, I wanted to share some of my favourite projects and learnings from working here. - Blueprint episode 3 with The KITE Research Institute at UHN (Toronto Rehabilitation Institute). What an exciting project! One of the biggest ones I worked on, and I got to see it through from pitching the idea to planning, filming, and completion. As my first video shoot, I learned a lot about working with videographers and subjects and how to prep a scene. Watch the episode: https://lnkd.in/g6rT8iiu - HIROC Conference series I attended HIROC’s Annual Conference this year and took enough notes from all the great speakers for three articles! I had never written a series before, so it was interesting to figure out the scheduling of all the articles and see how they performed (they did well!). Read part one: https://lnkd.in/grkRyHef - Holiday card contest After hearing about “innovation challenges” at Marketing Brew’s conference, I thought of having a holiday card design contest open to all staff. It was a great learning experience, and the Comms team did an amazing job working together to manage it. Our winning design came from Chiharu on our HSRM team! View the card: https://lnkd.in/g8NFc8g3 It has been an absolute pleasure working with everyone at HIROC! And a special shoutout to the Comms team: Michelle, Marc, Abi, Alicia and Philip (see our group photo below!). I have learned so much from each of you and am deeply grateful for this experience. Thank you for your leadership, collaboration, and friendship. See you down the road! THANK YOU, Gillian for your ideas, hard work and amazing team spirit! #teamwork #collaboration #EmployeeExperience

Are you looking for a career that not only supports YOUR growth, but also helps give back to the community? HIROC’s unique culture is one that is rooted in service for, and collaboration with the Canadian healthcare sector. Be sure to check out our Careers page today! https://lnkd.in/gGZbyue And did we mention that we were just recognized as a GTA Top Employer for a ninth consecutive year? Here's the open positions: - Account Associate (14-Month Contract)  - Senior Account Executive (16-Month Contract) - IT Project Specialist - Lead, Finance (18-Month Contract)  - Director, Finance and Operations - Senior Healthcare Safety and Risk Management Specialist - Healthcare Risk Management Coordinator  - Enterprise Application Specialist - Senior Claims Examiner - Privacy & Compliance Coordinator

We've got your weekend podcast listen! With only a few weeks left in 2024, we wrapped up the year and talked about what's to come with Catherine Gaulton and Philip De Souza. Check out this clip from our final Healthcare Change Makers podcast episode for the year. Catherine shares the top things she's seen or heard from Subscribers this year. Grab the full episode on Youtube or wherever you get your podcasts. https://lnkd.in/gce_xiR3 #podcast #cdnhealth

HIROC is so happy to share that our very own Gordon Slemko has been awarded with a University of Toronto, MD Program Teaching Award for Excellence. The MD Program Teaching Award for Excellence was introduced in 2017 by medical students to recognize faculty, residents, graduate student teachers and clinicians in the MD Program, that have attained exceptional Teaching Evaluation Scores in one or more of the teaching activities to which they have contributed. Gord is one of the legal seminar leaders at U of T's Faculty of Medicine. The program pairs lawyers with practicing physicians who together lead small group medico-legal sessions with med students. We asked Gord what his favourite part of teaching is. He had this to say: "That’s an easy question – the students are easily my favourite part. They are so eager to learn. Every time I finish a session, I am reassured that we are in good hands with this next batch of doctors." And in true Gord fashion, when we placed him in the spotlight recently on our staff intranet to share his latest achievement, rather than letting us share pictures of him, he shared a sweet picture of his 4 dogs. A real testament to his humble nature - which is exactly why he makes such a wonderful teacher!

The Green Office Challenge recognizes primary care clinicians across Canada who are leaders in sustainability, and the 2024 winners were recently announced! Congratulations to Hamilton Family Health Team, St. Michael’s Family Health Team, and Beamsville Centre Medical Health Team! Each winner presented their sustainability initiatives across 11 different areas including optimizing medications, transportation and virtual medicine, and energy efficiency. Some of the winners’ top green office strategies include: - Eliminate clinical exam table paper - Increase nature and social prescribing (ParkRx) - Adopt green bins and increase number of recycling bins - Switch to green, organic cleaning products - Reduce printing paper - Promote plant-based diets for patients and staff - Add bike racks and staff discounts for public transit - Prescribe dry powder inhalers instead of metered-dose inhalers The 2024 Green Office Challenge was organized by the Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care, PEACH Health Ontario, Hamilton Family Health Team Green Initiative, and HP. For more information on greening your office, check out these resources. - Green Office Toolkit https://lnkd.in/g485hkgk - Guidebooks on sustainability for various health professions https://lnkd.in/eB6YzX5Q Does your organization have any sustainability initiatives that are making an impact? Let us know at [email protected] so we can share them! #sustainability #healthcare #SustainableHealthcare #ClimateChange

Want to reflect alongside HIROC? On our NEW episode of Healthcare Change Makers, reflect on 2024 and what's to come in a chat with HIROC CEO Catherine Gaulton. We discuss:   - What brought Catherine joy this year - What she has learned in 2024 - Top trends and success stories from Subscribers - What she's looking forward to in 2025 - + More! Listen today! https://lnkd.in/g8kT-BQB We encourage you to reflect on these questions throughout the episode as well. What brought you joy? What are you looking forward to? What have you learned? As always, connect with HIROC or share a safety success story with us any time by emailing [email protected]. #HIROC #leadership #podcast #change #communications

Friday Feels! In light of our recent Greater Toronto's Top 2025 Employer award, our staff is reflecting on what makes HIROC so great. Here is what Christina Giannone, Assistant Vice President, People & Organization, had to say: "So proud to be part of this amazing organization! Thankful for all of my colleagues for making (and continuing to make) HIROC a Top GTA Employer! 9 years in a row! You are who makes us so great! It starts with our staff!” #GTATopEmployers #TopEmployers2025

HIROC is pleased to share a few upcoming dates for LEADERSHIP and PATIENT SAFETY AWARDS: - As of December 31, nominations for the Association of Ontario Midwives's HIROC Just Culture and Patient Safety Award are due. The award recognizes the important contributions made by Indigenous, Black and racialized members to all aspects of midwifery care, and specifically to the promotion of “just culture” and “patient safety culture”. It will be given to up to three students in the Midwifery Education Program. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/gCpJBaE7 - Until February 7, nominations are open for the AdvantAge Ontario - Advancing Senior Care Leadership Award. This is for a senior executive who has demonstrated outstanding leadership within their own organization and commitment to AdvantAge Ontario. A submission form is available in the Members area of the AdvantAge website. https://lnkd.in/gvGK85q4 We are so proud to support these awards as a way of recognizing those who are making a difference in our system. 

Grateful that Judith Kean, FCCA, MBA, CPA, CGA and a few members of team HIROC recently spent a day outside of the healthcare sector sharing stories and learning about diversity in leadership.