Message from DR TOCHI ANYANSI BOARD OF DIRECTOR, RIHPA (HILLSIDE)

Once again, it is with great pleasure that I write this letter as a member of the board of Royal Inland and Hillside Physician Association representing Hillside Center.

As many of you know, Hillside Center joined Royal Inland Hospital in April 2020 to form the Royal Inland and Hillside Physician Association (RIHPA). This amalgamation has benefitted the two hospitals so much that we merged the two working groups into one in July 2021. This move was also expedient since many of our physicians work in both hospitals.

Together as a physician association representing two sites, we have grown in leaps and bounds. We welcomed new directors last year, and we encouraged physicians to participate in projects that will improve patient outcomes and improve physician wellness. We were able to navigate the challenges of switching to the full use of electronic medical records for charting in RIH. RIHPA was able to support departments to engage their members in the learning processes of this switch.

At Hillside, we are seeing some changes in our physician work force as two of our psychiatrists retire in November 2022. We are making efforts to support Interior Health in recruiting new physicians to take their places. Although we are still struggling with attracting psychiatrists to Hillside and to Kamloops in general, we have hope that the new physician recruitment lead assigned to the region will prioritize our needs. Nevertheless, Hillside physicians are still very excited to be part of this dynamic association that has achieved so much with so little in the last 6 years. We are looking forward to continued collaboration with our health authority partners through a stronger and more diversified association.

This last year we have increased our engagement with our health authority partners and are happy to have more access to senior management staff of the health authority based in Kamloops.

As we nominate and cast votes for the next set of RIHPA directors at the AGM I call on members to step forward and participate in physician leadership through membership of the Board or Working Groups so that our voices will continue to be heard on matters critical to physician wellness and quality patient care.

Thank you for your continued support of the board and working groups of Royal Inland and Hillside Center.

Dr. Tochi Anyansi Board of Director, RIHPA (Hillside)