Changing the "Old Management" paradigm: Staff Retention in Health Care

By Tony Bradford, Managing Director, Centre for Corporate Health

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Since March 2002, the Sydney Adventist Hospital has undertaken the most innovative and comprehensive leadership and management development programme in its 100 year history. The programme has challenged the fundamental way managers think and behave. It has enabled each manager to assess how they can be more effective in terms of how they go about their work, and interact with their teams. This has produced tremendous change resulting in a more constructive workplace culture which in turn has contributed to a 4% reduction in staff turnover in just eighteen months.

The Organisation

The Sydney Adventist Hospital, known as "the San", is a not-for-profit, acute-care private hospital licensed by the New South Wales Department of Health for 329 beds, making it the largest single campus private hospital in NSW. It is also the largest single employer in the Hornsby-Kuring-gai council area.

The San is operated as a community service by the Seventh-day Adventist Church and is part of a worldwide network of more than 500 hospitals and clinics. The San employs approximately 2,000 staff and has 500 accredited medical practitioners. It cares for more than 40,000 in-patients and 170,000 out-patients annually.

The San's Mission is founded on its philosophy of being a family of caring people reaching out to those in need. From the foundation of its distinctive Adventist Christian Healthcare environment the San focuses on assisting all staff in attaining the highest personal and professional standards of excellence and respecting each person's worth and dignity in its quest to educate in the principles of healthful living and disease prevention.

Next page: The Challenge

Tony Bradford is the Managing Director of the Centre for Corporate Health, Sydney. For more information on this programme, contact him via tony@cfch.com.au.