Pursuing Our Potential Together sets tone for future plans
President and CEO Michael Fisher led a discussion about exploring possibilities and dreaming big when it comes to improving child health.
At Cincinnati Children’s, we have been making a difference for patients and families throughout our 136-year history. And what an amazing journey it’s been! Our employees have developed vaccines to prevent polio and rotavirus; engineered the technology that enabled the first open-heart surgery; created surfactant to help premature infants breathe; come up with gene therapies to treat sickle cell anemia; and grown organoids to revolutionize how we understand and treat diseases. All of these innovations have impacted the lives of millions of kids around the world. But we’re not finished….
In 2033—just 14 years from now—Cincinnati Children’s will celebrate its 150th anniversary. We want to dream bigger and aspire higher to shape the future of child health. What will our legacy be? And how will we accomplish it?
At a recent town hall meeting, Michael Fisher, president and CEO, outlined the process for “making it real,” or “Pursuing Our Potential Together.” Over the last six months, we have been working in partnership with McKinsey, an independent consulting group, to shape a set of aspirations and identify opportunities that only a place like Cincinnati Children’s could take on. During this time, we have:
- Engaged with hundreds of employees and faculty across the organization
- Mined more than 8,000 employee survey responses
- Reviewed external trends, and more…
The result of this work has been a decision to focus on four areas:
- Culture. We will build on our strengths to become an even “healthier” organization, in service to both our mission and our people. This means getting more clarity around our strategic plan, collaborating for commitment, aligning how we make decisions and taking better care of our staff.
- Care. We will deliver a re-imagined and personalized care experience to more children and families, reaching about 10 times the children we serve today.
- Cure. We will harness the power of discovery to prevent, cure, or radically improve the treatment of pediatric and adolescent mental health and another focus area that we will determine with faculty input.
- Community. We will amplify our catalytic role, fostering cross-stakeholder participation and investment in evidence-based interventions to meaningfully improve child health in Cincinnati.
We are fortunate, thanks to the wisdom and forethought of leaders past and the careful stewardship of all, to be approaching the challenges ahead from a position of strength. Next up, we will be moving into the “Assess” and “Architect” phases where we will establish teams, do additional reconnaissance, develop milestones, identify resource needs and more.
“These are big dreams,” said Fisher, “but I’m confident Cincinnati Children’s can do this.”
