Decision to leave Sault Area Hospital not made lightly, Gagnon says

As reported earlier Thursday, Ron Gagnon, Sault Area Hospital (SAH) president and CEO, will be leaving the helm of the local hospital to be president and chief executive officer at Grand River Hospital, a facility serving more than 700,000 residents of Waterloo Region and Guelph Wellington in early November.

“I’ve been at SAH for 17 years. I first joined in 2001 so in some ways it’s a good time in my personal life and a good time in my career to make this type of change,” Gagnon told SooToday.

Gagnon first served at SAH as vice president of Finance in 2001, then as president and CEO beginning in 2006.

“Now, it’s a good opportunity I’ve been presented with at the Grand River Hospital, it’s an opportunity to work in a larger centre and bring what I’ve learned here and the experience I’ve gained here to a larger scale and hopefully have a positive impact for another part of the province.”

Gagnon, a Sault native, said the decision to leave SAH has not been one he has made lightly.

“I love SAH. I love this community. I’m a Saultite, so having had the opportunity that I’ve had here in my hometown is one that has been life-changing, one that I will never forget and one I will be forever grateful for.”

That said, Gagnon is looking forward to “some exciting opportunities at Grand River, it’s on a larger scale and there’s also a really large technology project that’s underway there that can really have a positive impact on care. There are some partnerships that have been really successful there that you can build on, and it’s in the innovation triangle of this province.”

With Gagnon as president and CEO, SAH developed a new vision which included bringing in fully electronic medical records at the local, regional and provincial levels.

On that technology theme, Gagnon said Grand River Hospital “is an opportunity to work with some real innovators, to look at what’s possible in the next wave of healthcare...it’s the partnership level, the community, where it’s located, to learn from and work with a new organization and new people. ”

“That excites me."

At Grand River Hospital, Gagnon will be in charge of a team of 5,000 people, including medical staff, administrators and volunteers.

“It’s one of the larger community hospitals in the province and under their current leadership I think they’ve seen some great successes and it’s an exciting opportunity for me to build on the successes that are already there,” Gagnon said.

During his time as SAH president and CEO, SAH moved to its new location on Great Northern Road, achieved a partnership with Health Sciences North which led to the availability of radiation treatment for patients in the Sault and Algoma region and made coronary angioplasty available in the community.

Is there an achievement of which he is particularly pleased with?

“There have been so many, but what I’m proudest of is the people of this organization. I get this great opportunity to see their passion for this community and great healthcare every day. Not everybody gets to see that, but it lives every day within these walls, and I don’t own that as ‘Ron’s accomplishment.’ Any accomplishment in this organization comes because of every single physician, employee and volunteer.”

“If I look at some of the biggest things that have occurred while I’ve had the opportunity to be the CEO in this organization, I see the new facility we sit in today,” Gagnon said.

“It’s a new facility, and I remember coming here in 2001 with many people thinking it would never happen, and now having our first cases of angioplasty, that’s a real feather in the cap for the people who work here, and I’ve been given the opportunity to work alongside them.”

Gagnon said his successor will have a solid team as support.

Gagnon said an ongoing challenge for SAH will be taking care of an aging population while facing healthcare funding issues.

“That’s a constant challenge in healthcare in general, in hospitals...I think in the early days we had a lot to do to regain some credibility as an organization, and I think we did that. I think the staff and physicians did a great job of doing that here.”

Gagnon, who has worked in Kingston and Toronto during his career, said he is ready to make the transition to southern Ontario life, while still planning to make regular visits to family members in the Sault.