New additions to the Senior Executive Team
By Mary Ackenhusen
Vice President and Chief Transformation Officer: Darcia Pope
As you know, VCH is embarking on its own transformation journey. The My VCH survey has just begun and I am excited about what lies ahead.
To help lead us on our journey and keep us focused on our drive to go from good to great, I have appointed Darcia Pope in the new role of Vice President and Chief Transformation Officer.
A highly capable and inspiring leader, Darcia will not only challenge our Senior Executive Team to continually examine our decisions, directions and strategies, but she will challenge me to ensure that I bring the leadership necessary to successfully transform VCH.
In her new role, Darcia will support the measurement and realization of benefits and outcomes from an organizational perspective. She will identify barriers and mitigation strategies to ensure initiatives and projects remain on track, move to completion, and are aligned with VCH’s strategic priorities and long term financial plans.
Of course delivering results quickly is important, as is ensuring the resources we use on our transformation journey are appropriate and deployed the right way. Delivering results is also something Darcia has experience in. Her health career included roles as Patient Care Manager for the Outpatient Department at St. Paul’s Hospital and Change Leader for the amalgamation of Providence Health Care. Darcia joined VCH in 2002. She was Director of Enterprise Services in IMITS and then moved into the new position of Executive Director of Transformation where her focus would shift over the years to include Workforce Optimization, Green Care, Primary and Community Systems projects, and Strategic Initiatives. Darcia has led the Strategic Planning process for SET since 2013, establishing the Office of Strategy Management in 2016.
Please join me in welcoming Darcia to this exciting new Senior Executive Team role and on the transformation journey that lies ahead.
Vice President of Community Services: Yasmin Jetha
I am delighted to announce the appointment of Yasmin Jetha as Vice President of Community Services. As part of the VCH Senior Executive Team, this new position will be pivotal in leading the planning and transformative changes necessary to achieve our vision for a new, integrated model of care in the community.
In this role, Yasmin will build on the success and great work already underway within Primary & Community Care under Dr. Patty Daly, and across the Communities of Care (CoCs). She will collaboratively lead a robust, standardized approach that will support our patients and clients in the home while identifying and replicating best practices from our local communities and other jurisdictions. Designing new care models and exploring opportunities to optimize the use of technology will be a key part of this.
To best support an integrated new model of primary and community care and enable the transformative shift required in the delivery of health services across VCH, six of our Regional Program Leadership Teams will now report to Yasmin – Primary Care; Home Health; End of Life; Mental Health & Substance Use; Residential Care; and Medicine. She will also partner with the Chief Operating Officers in a cross-program approach to achieving our future state goals in Primary and Community Care.
Yasmin brings a wealth of leadership experience. She has been the Regional Program Director of Palliative/End of Life Care and the Director of Home, Community and Palliative Care within Vancouver Community. In both roles, Yasmin has achieved tangible results and better outcomes for our population. Prior to this, she was the Regional Executive Director for Mental Health and Addictions where she gained invaluable experience working across the Communities of Care, as well as Director of Mental Health and Addictions for the Richmond CoC. Her collective experience and passion for clinical transformation make her a wonderful fit for this role and I look forward to her contributions as a member of the Senior Executive Team.
Please join me in warmly welcoming Yasmin to this new role!