I’m proud of a ton of things that we’ve accomplished for the folks of Arizona over the last 2 ½ years together.  Two of the things that I’m most proud of has been our collective ability to think clearly about ways that we can achieve better health outcomes in Arizona using creative thinking, enthusiasm and elbow grease.  The combination of creativity and enthusiasm among our team has allowed us to make unprecedented gains.  We’ve improved our internal efficiency and effectiveness by creating partnerships among our various internal areas- but also by finding leverage points with our Stakeholders and creating partnerships to move our collective missions forward.

Now I’d like to take us to the next level.  There’s a fairly new practice to accredit health departments where we will get credit for what we are already doing and help us to be even more effective than we already are.  As a first step, I’d like to embark on a mission to create a strategic plan that covers all of the things we do in Health Services.  And I mean the entire agency: prevention, preparedness, licensing, behavioral health, operations, the Hospital.

We’ve put together a Managing Excellence website along with our draft strategic map – which we’ll be discussing, revising, and using in meetings throughout the fall.  Even though the map looks 2-dimensional, it’s really a 3-dimensional matrix.  By the way- we’re already doing all of the things that you see in the strategic map.  But by going through a deliberate strategic planning process, we’ll be better able to focus our creativity in a way that even more effectively moves us forward.

You won’t see any specific programs listed on the map but they’re all there- and everybody has a key role to play.  We’ll be having some divisional meetings over the coming weeks to talk about the overall process- so make sure you check it out before your division meeting.  Make sure you ask questions during the sessions and talk to each other about how we all fit into our mission:  To improve the health and wellness of people and communities in Arizona.