Returning to Ontario, to an organization surrounded by rural communities, feels like a bit of a homecoming for Adam Topp.
Returning to Ontario, to an organization surrounded by rural communities, feels like a bit of a homecoming for Adam Topp.
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The new president and chief executive of the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance officially took the reins Tuesday, spending much of the past week meeting with people and touring the facilities.
Topp, who grew up mostly in the Niagara area, moved back to the province from Winnipeg.
He sees a few similarities between Grimsby, where he went to high school, and Chatham-Kent.
“They’re both agricultural, they’re both rural. I still have a farm in Niagara. Bought it from my grandfather when he passed away,” he said Thursday. “Right now, it’s just soybeans, but I grew up working on a peach farm.
“It actually feels like coming home.”
As for health care, he has more than 30 years of experience in the sector.
His previous roles include: president and chief executive of Shared Health Manitoba; director of health transformation for that province’s Priorities and Planning Committee Secretariat; senior associate consultant for Hay Group Health Care Consulting; chief operator for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority; and vice-president of clinical operations, vice-president of corporate performance and chief financial officer at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.
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Topp is a founding partner and chief executive of Benchmark Intelligence Group Inc. (BIG Healthcare), a management consulting service geared to the health-care industry, working in multiple provinces.
Asked about his departure from Shared Health Manitoba, he said, “It was kind of time to come back home.”
“I left (Ontario) when I was 18. I’ve worked across the country, I’ve worked in the US, I’ve worked overseas. . . UK and Australia,” he said.
Former CKHA leader Lori Marshall officially retired in June.
Topp’s priorities include meeting patient demand for care, and staff support “through what’s been a very difficult three, four years” in the industry.
“(It’s) creating an environment where they can achieve what they need to achieve to take care of our patients,” he said. “That’s a pretty common challenge across Ontario. I’m certainly seeing it here as I’ve started.
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“I see some issues that are not unique to us, in terms of government of dealing with funding from the we’re going to have to address.”
Given the post-COVID landscape, as well as post-cyberattack, he credited the health alliance team for being supportive of each other.
He’s excited for the redevelopment of the Wallaceburg hospital site, which he visited in August.
“One of the big challenges that Canada has is rural health care,” he said. “And that’s one of the things that attracts me to Chatham-Kent.
“A lot of rural communities (are) spread across this country that need access to care.”
He believes the best way to keep Canada’s health-care system sustainable is to keep it efficient, noting public, single-payer systems have, in general, less administrative overhead.
The community’s generosity through various fundraising initiatives has made an impression on him, he said. He attended the recent Parade of Chefs gala.
“That kind of thing is wonderful,” he said. “We need that kind of support from the community in order to keep our capital infrastructure in place. So, that was great to see and a great way to start.”
Three days into his new job, Topp said he’s been settling in, so far.
“Everybody’s so friendly,” he said. “It does feel very much like the community I left when I was 18.”
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