{"id":19492,"date":"2018-01-03T16:42:57","date_gmt":"2018-01-03T21:42:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=19492"},"modified":"2018-01-03T16:42:57","modified_gmt":"2018-01-03T21:42:57","slug":"arden-krystal-leads-southlake-in-a-time-of-increasing-growth-and-demand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/arden-krystal-leads-southlake-in-a-time-of-increasing-growth-and-demand\/","title":{"rendered":"Arden Krystal leads Southlake in a time of increasing growth and demand"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not many people get a crash course on their new workplace while standing in line for a new license plate, but that\u2019s exactly what Arden Krystal received this fall when she mentioned Southlake Regional Health Centre.
\nMs. Krystal, who comes to Southlake from British Columbia with over 30 years of experience in the public health sector, took over as President and CEO of the hospital this past October.
\nEvidently, it\u2019s a hospital whose reputation precedes it. While waiting in line to get her plates, she said she had a 10 minute talk about the hospital, its programs, and the warm feelings the clerk had towards the organization. But, that being said, she is coming into a hospital facing an increase on demand due to growth and, in turn, there are some areas feeling what she describes as a \u201cstrain.\u201d
\n\u201cIt is evident when you walk through the hallways and through the Emergency Department and see the kinds of volumes staff are contending with,\u201d she says. \u201cLike other Emergencies across Canada, it is primarily related to new populations as well as our aging population. As people age, their number of chronic diseases goes up and their need for health services goes up. It is really in the medical areas in particular where we\u2019re noticing a kind of strain.\u201d
\nWith a few months at the helm now under her belt, Ms. Krystal says she has been spearheading ongoing discussions with the hospital board, Southlake\u2019s executive team, and several members of staff in town halls to get an idea of the \u201cneeds and wants\u201d within the Southlake community.
\nAlthough she says the Ministry of Health &Long Term Care has a \u201cpatients first\u201d mandate, she says she uses a different approach to achieve those ends.
\n\u201cFor me, it is not about who is first or second, but how to we create the best patient experience possible,\u201d she says. \u201cFor me, the way we do that is making sure staff have the environment they need to essentially be happy at work. It means removing barriers to them doing their best work. It means supporting them through education and training. It means giving them the resources they need to do their jobs, like the right equipment. There are a lot of things I think we have an opportunity to do. That is the work I have done in my past and I think I can make a bit of an imprint here at Southlake.
\n\u201c[Another focus], from a mid- to long-term perspective is really helping Southlake plan for the inevitable growth that will occur over time and needs to occur over time. That is through things like embarking on a new Five-Year Strategic Plan as well as starting some master site planning. It is obviously very important to think ahead around where our space needs will be and be really well positioned to move forward with these things when needed.\u201d
\nMs. Krystal came to Southlake as a resident of Vancouver. There was some \u201chead scratching\u201d when she came on board at Southlake, she says, with people asking her what she knew not only about northern York Region and south Simcoe, but the needs of the local community.
\nYet, she says, she grew up in Abbotsford, a community not dissimilar to those which Southlake serves.
\nIn both locales, there is a commitment from the community to its local hospital and this commitment, in turn, is returned. Both are communities needing an increased focus on mental health services and increased rates of homelessness, people looking to retire in place or downsizing from the big city to a smaller town lifestyle, as well as young families setting up their first homes.
\n\u201cPeople move out and young families move out because they can\u2019t afford to live in the city and that means you really have to check out services for babies, children and young families \u2013 and that includes primary care,\u201d says Ms. Krystal. \u201cYou have to make sure also, because you have a big retirement group, that there are services for near the end of people\u2019s lives as well. It is bimodal distribution in some ways and that is pretty typical of both small towns and towns like this that are growing quite fast.
\n\u201cWhat I see in the community are these building pressures that really impact the health care system and that is where a lot of engagement from the community [will come in]. Healthcare internationally is really changing in a big way to become much more attuned to patient participation, not only participation in their own health care, but also their participation in planning the way services should be delivered and grown.
\n\u201cOne of the things I will be doing differently at Southlake is, as we embark on our five year plan, going out to various places in the community to engage members on the kinds of services they would like to see us build and grow. I am very appreciative of the warm welcome I have received but it is very apparent to me how proud people are of the organization and how committed they are to making it successful.
\n\u201cLike every organization, there are challenges from time to time but I feel really confident with the continued support of our community we\u2019re going to make Southlake even better.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not many people get a crash course on their new workplace while standing in line for a new license plate, but that\u2019s exactly what Arden Krystal received this fall when she mentioned Southlake Regional Health Centre.
\nMs. Krystal, who comes to Southlake from British Columbia with over 30 years of experience in the public health sector, took over as President and CEO of the hospital this past October. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19465,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/2018-01-04-07.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-54o","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-10 17:07:20","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}