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Welcome to iPropel, Ornge's Strategic Plan

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Letter from the CEO

Dr. Homer Tien, Ornge President and CEO

On January 4, 2020, just two days after I took the reins of CEO at Ornge, the World Health Organization first signaled that there was a cluster of pneumonia cases of unknown cause in Wuhan, a city in central China. At that time, a total of 44 cases were reported. One year later, there have been over 90 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 globally and over 1.9 million deaths. This seismic shift in the healthcare system in Ontario and around the world happened just as we began planning for the next chapter in our organization’s history: Ornge’s Strategic Plan 2021 - 2024.

While focusing on immediate priorities – such as keeping our staff safe, developing novel clinical protocols for transporting COVID-19 patients, adapting equipment, and importantly, contributing to Ontario’s COVID-19 response and vaccination efforts – these recent challenges have caused us to carefully consider our place within the provincial healthcare system and how we can best use our organization’s unique skills and expertise for the benefit of our patients and partners.

I am pleased to present our Strategic Plan 2021-2024 which will guide us as we stretch even further to achieve the best possible outcomes for our patients and provide innovative approaches for better integrating care throughout the province.

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Operating Environment and Vision

Ontario is vast - our population of over 14 million is spread out over 1 million km2, an area larger than France and Spain combined. Geography is a major determinant of health for Ontarians; patients in northern and rural Ontario face inequitable access to care and may suffer adverse outcomes as a result. For example, first line emergency care looks different in remote Indigenous communities in Northern Ontario compared to large metropolitan centres. In Toronto, skilled paramedics resuscitate on scene and then drive patients a short distance to emergency departments located within world-class quaternary academic hospitals. In some remote northern communities, there are sometimes no paramedics to provide care on scene, and the local emergency department is a nursing station. Patients who reside in remote communities often need to board an airplane for an hour flight before even seeing an emergency physician.

Ornge is Ontario’s air ambulance and critical care transport provider. We have fixed-wing (FW) and rotor-wing (RW) aviation assets, as well as critical care land ambulances (CCLA). Because of our province’s vast geography, any future vision of health equity in Ontario must involve Ornge and must consider transport. Our vision for Ornge is rooted in this perspective.

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iPropel: Our Strategic Propellers

The Ornge strategic propeller will help us achieve our vision and mission over the next three years.
Our strategic propeller comprises of four areas:

iP1: Invent Practice

iP2: Improve Processes

iP3: Integrate Provincially

iP4: Inspire our People

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iP1: Invent Practice in Transport Medicine

Patients are our focus. As such, we need to ensure that we incorporate best practices in everything we do to achieve the best possible outcomes for our patients.

Ornge also plays a major role in providing equitable access to care for rural and remote communities, particularly for isolated Indigenous communities. Many residents of these communities need to board an air ambulance just to see a physician, get a radiograph, or to return home from hospital for end-of-life care.

iP1: Major Tasks

	Diagnostic Testing (Point of Care, Ultrasound)		Transport Medicine Practice (Mental Health Patients, ePCR Solutions, End of Life Care)
	Critical Care Transport Practice (Airway management, Vent Replacement, Transfusion Capabilities, Invent Safe Practices)		Thought Leadership (Research and publications, Podcast and outreach)

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iP2: Improve our Processes to Achieve Operational Excellence

To achieve operational excellence, we will improve our processes so that we ‘ACTT’ (Access, Capacity, Training and Transport) with Precision.

Access:	Innovative ways to help rural and remote communities access the care they need.
Capacity:	Innovative ways to help rural and remote communities during surges in demand.
Training:	Ensure staff – particularly front-line pilots and paramedics – are appropriately trained to safely and effectively complete their missions.
Transport:	Have the appropriate vehicle available in the right location, ready to complete our missions.
Precision:	Get the right patient to the right place with the right asset at the right time.

iP2: Major Tasks

	Training (Initial Training, CME)		Transport (CCLA expansion, Fleet Renewal, Maintenance and Operational Cycles, Aerdrome Analysis, SA Carriers)
	Capacity (Surge Response, Partnerships)		Precision Dipatching (IT and AI Tools, Operational Efficiency, IT Road Map, Right Asset, Time, Patient and Place)

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iP3: Integrate Provincially

Ornge is one of the few health care organizations in Ontario whose service delivery mandate spans the entire province, and the only agency that transports patients provincially across municipal and regional borders. We are uniquely placed to facilitate innovative solutions for system integration, as we have done during Ontario’s response to COVID-19.

iP3: Major Tasks

	EHS Modernization (Screening and Approvals)		CritiCall and Ornge (Align Programming)
	eHealth/Connecting Ontario (Patient Information, Ornge ePCRs)		Communication (Improve Stakeholder Communication)

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iP4: Inspire our People

We continue encourage equity, diversity and inclusion to get the best members for our team; and will ensure that our team members feel safe, secure and supported to achieve our standard of excellence. We will ensure that they are well-equipped, well-resourced and well-trained to get the best results.

By 'Inspiring our People', we hope to Live our Corporate Values:

Kindness, Respect, Integrity, Safety, and Professionalism

iP4: Major Tasks

	Equity Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) (EDI Committee Roadmap)		Leadership and Education (Leadership Traning, Leadership Courses, Pre-Hospital and Transport Felllowship)
	Fatigue Risk Management & Safety (Develop Programming)		Chronic Stress (Develop Approach for Monitoring Impacts)
	Occupational Health and Safety (Adopt Best Practices)

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About This Plan

Ornge began its strategic planning process with an extensive review of our operating environment. We considered the impact that clinical developments are having on transport medicine, new opportunities for improving access to care most especially for patients in the North, and the importance of equity, diversity and inclusion in terms of culturally sensitive and appropriate care to all Ontarians, and in being an employer of choice for visible minorities, Indigenous peoples and LGBTQ2S+ members.

We gathered feedback on our proposed strategic directions from our patients and their families, our health care delivery partners across the province and our staff throughout the entire organization. We are grateful for their insights and look forward to working collaboratively on specific initiatives and reporting on progress as we move forward in implementing our strategic propeller.

We will continue to track and monitor our organizational performance through our annual report, our annual Quality Improvement Plan, our annual Business Plan and other routine internal reporting, and through these and other mechanisms, will track our progress in implementing the Strategic Plan.

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Read iPropel 2024

Read through the Strategic Plan by clicking this link, or visit our Publications page to download an accessible version.