Executive Summary
The 2020-2023 Education Strategic Plan builds on the successes of the 2017-2020 Education Strategic Plan, which identified four major education priorities: Patient as Educator, Team-Based Learning, Learner Experience & Culture, and Education Research & Scholarship.
In contemplating the next stage of development for Sunnybrook Education, senior leaders at Sunnybrook, education leaders at the University of Toronto, and other TAHSN hospitals were consulted in July and August 2019. While retention of the four strategic priorities from the 2017-2020 Education Strategic Plan was unanimously endorsed, we also heard the need for even greater integration with Sunnybrook’s clinical programs and stronger alignment with quality and patient safety. Through the fall of 2019, groups of subject matter experts and key stakeholders drawn from Sunnybrook’s clinical programs, the Office of the Patient Experience, Organizational Development and Leadership, and Quality and Patient Safety were invited to attend a series of eight workshops. This rigorous and inclusive process culminated in a strategic planning retreat in December 2019, attended by education leaders from across Sunnybrook as well as the University of Toronto and TAHSN communities. In February 2020, a subsequent additional workshop was designed to address a fifth strategic direction that arose from the December 2019 retreat pertaining to life-long learning.
During the planning process, we revised the vision and mission statements for Education to be more closely aligned with Sunnybrook’s 2018-2021 strategic plan but retained the core values that had been articulated back in 2017. Five strategic directions were identified: Learner Experience & Culture, Team-Based Learning, Patient as Educator, Life-Long Learning and Education Research & Scholarship. In the current strategic plan, a goal and an overarching measure of success has been identified for each of the five strategic directions. Objectives are then defined to accomplish these goals in addition to more granular tactics that will advance these discrete objectives over the course of the next three years. Annual work plans will define the milestones for these tactics as they are played out over time as key results, in accordance with John Doerr’s highly regarded OKR (Objectives and Key Results) framework.
There are a number of exciting developments in the current strategic plan. The focus of Learner Experience and Culture has expanded to address the psychological needs and well-being of all student learners including those within the Sunnybrook Research Institute (SRI). In addition, special emphasis will be placed on psychological safety and developing educational interventions to address student mistreatment. Team-Based Learning will develop team-based learning “tool-kits” and will focus even greater emphasis on interventions that promote psychological safety and will measure this as a critical outcome. Patient as Educator will expand the involvement of patients and families to provide formative feedback to student learners so that they can enhance their acquisition of communication skills and self-reflect on their professionalism. The recent identification of Life- Long Learning as a strategic direction will ensure that nursing and health professional education is better aligned and integrated with the work that is conducted within Organizational Development and Leadership. Education Research and Scholarship has a much greater capability to deliver impactful research on patients as educators because of the recent recruitment of the ACMS Professor in Education Research, Dr. Csilla Kalocsai.
Moving to implementation, the five Strategic Direction working groups will be engaged in developing and implementing annual work plans to achieve their goal and objectives based on the tactics defined in the strategic plan. A robust monitoring and evaluation process has been defined that includes regular bi-weekly meetings with the Strategic Direction Leads and bi-monthly updates to the Sunnybrook Education Advisory Council and the Education and Human Resources Committee of the Board to ensure all stakeholders are informed as to progress.
