Jean Bartkowiak

Jean Bartkowiak, GrDip (inst. admin.), received an MHSc in health administration from the University of Toronto in 1981.He is now the chief executive officer of the Centre Hospitalier des Vallées de l'Outaouais in Gatineau, Que.Jean is married with three children.

Jean Bartkowiak was brought in to repair the damage after a difficult merger between two Quebec hospitals.

When Jean Bartkowiak assumed the position of interim director of the Centre Hospi-talier des Vallées de l'Outaouais, he was parachuted into a situation that has been aptly described in the Robert Frost poem Mending Wall.It was clear that the signs indicated that good fences, or in this case a seven-kilometre stretch of road, made good neighbours for the Hull and Gatineau Hospitals in west Quebec.

"The two organizations had a history of quarrelling and have always been competing," explains Bartkowiak, who took on the assignment of overseeing the merger of the hospitals in west Quebec last fall."The Gatineau Hospital was family physician-oriented while the Hull Hospital was centred on its specialists.The medical culture of the two hospitals is different."

Named permanent director of the two hospital sites in July, Bartkowiak is a graduate of the University of Toronto, where he received his master's degree in health administration.Most recently, 47-year-old Bartkowiak received the Chairman's Award for Distinguished Service from the Canadian College of Health Service Executives.His most recent assignment was at a small hospital in Victoriaville, where he was successful in implementing a client-centred approach to healthcare delivery.

He has been aiming to use the same client-centred approach to management since taking up the challenge last November of managing the merged facilities of the Hull Hospital and the Gatineau Hospital.His objective is that the same recipe will result in better co-ordination, improved collaboration, and more efficient and cost-effective healthcare delivery.

"The approach is not a matter of adding more machines or more resources," he says.
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Unfortunately for Bartkowiak, the friction between the two hospitals created a climate of tension.By the time he arrived on the scene, a host of senior management resignations had taken place.Key among those was the resignation of the council of physicians, pharmacists and dentists, which oversees the quality of professional care provided in the hospital, under Quebec legislation.

The health minister intervened when management chaos was taking shape, and appointed consultants to senior management positions.Since taking up his assignment, Bartkowiak has been working 70-hour-plus weeks.The job requires his constant presence.Staff regularly line up outside the door of his spacious office to voice their concerns to a sympathetic ear.
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asks Bartkowiak, adding that the deficit for 2000/2001 was less than projected and that the centre is expecting to break even in 2001/2002.

Along with financial deficits, staffing issues have presented difficulties for the two sites.The merger took place while several health professions were facing shortages.More experienced professionals were opting for generous retirement packages while fewer new professionals were taking their spots.

"Nurses with five years' experience have become senior members of the team," says Bartkowiak."Less experienced nurses cannot necessarily replace a nurse who has been on the job 25 years.It may not come as easily to nurses with less seniority to lead a team of their peers."

Moreover, the hospitals' physical state shakes the faith of patients who set foot on the premises, according to Bartkowiak.
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"The feeling that I had when I arrived here was that the worst rather than the best practices of both organizations survived," says Bartkowiak.

In an era of constraint on hospital resources, Bartkowiak plans to examine patient care at both Hull and Gatineau Hospitals, to build an accurate depiction of treatment for the clinical and medical teams.Long-term planning will also require investigating the effect that current treatment modalities have on patients and how hospital resources must be allocated accordingly.

Most of the last year has been gruelling for Bartkowiak and a challenge to his personal life.His wife and children live in Victoriaville, and he has been returning home on weekends since last fall.

"It's tough on me physically and on my family, but it needs to be done," he says.