MedLab Pathology's parent company, Sonic Healthcare
Ltd., is an Australian clinical diagnostic organisation. Sonic
Healthcare is now the largest laboratory company in both Europe and
Australasia and the 3rd largest in the USA. Sonic operates in
8 countries, spanning three continents and employs over 23,000
people. Sonic offers pathology services to medical practitioners,
hospitals and community medicine in Australia, New Zealand, South
East Asia, Germany, UK and the USA. The growth of Sonic Healthcare
has been achieved through a combination of carefully chosen
acquisitions and strong organic growth and its success is
undoubtedly the result of the hard work and consistent delivery of
excellent services by our staff. Sonic Healthcare is committed to
personalised service, technical excellence and decentralised,
medically-focussed leadership.
Sonic Healthcare differs from other companies in many
ways...
One major and defining difference is our corporate culture. We
believe that healthcare is not 'just another industry'. What
we do is of vital personal importance to individuals - and to those
close to them. Achieving and maintaining excellence in
healthcare demands an all-pervading, supportive culture. In
order to protect ours, we distilled and then formally documented
it. It is encapsulated in our Sonic Healthcare Core Values
and Sonic Healthcare Foundation Principles . We invest
a great deal in nurturing our culture internally, across the entire
organisation, for the ongoing benefit of our customers -as well as
ourselves.
Sonic Healthcare Core Values
In early 2000, a Sonic Healthcare planning weekend was held to
discuss future strategies for the rapidly growing company and to
identify ways of assimilating the Sonic practices in spite of their
geographical spread. A team was set up to define and establish the
Sonic Healthcare Core Values. Its brief was to consult widely
throughout all levels of the practices of Sonic Healthcare and,
through an inclusive process, to distil the essence of the values
and cultures of the practices into one defining document. These
Values have been embraced enthusiastically as a uniting code of
conduct by Sonic Healthcare people. They are the yardstick by which
each of us measures our interactions with our work colleagues and
our customers, and our performance in our various duties.
Sonic Healthcare Foundation Principles
In October 2001, Sonic Healthcare's Managing Director convened a
two day meeting with the CEOs of all Sonic's medical diagnostic
subsidiaries, together with a small group of its corporate
executives. The express intention of this gathering was to
collaborate on - and then document - Sonic Healthcare's underlying
identity and ratify a set of associated principles, for the future
strategic benefit of the company.
With the Sonic Healthcare Core Values already well established
within the company as an internal code of behaviour for all Sonic's
staff, it was a logical and appropriate progression to formalise
the essential elements which characterised Sonic's relationships
with its external stakeholders - clinicians, patients and
others.
There was unanimous agreement that the overriding attribute
responsible for Sonic Healthcare's existing and future pre-eminent
market position was its adherence to the concept of "Medical
Leadership" in management and day-to-day operations. It was
acknowledged that pathologists, radiologists, technicians and
others with extensive first-hand experience of the laboratory and
radiology professions were those best suited for leadership roles
in Sonic's businesses. Moreover, it was also recognised that, as a
consequence of its medical leadership philosophy to date, Sonic had
already evolved into a special and somewhat unique organisation,
one which resonated deeply with referring doctors, patients,
hospital personnel and others with whom we came into contact. It
was self-evident to the assembled group that this model was also
ideally suited to, if not essential for, the provision of
services given the vital medical nature of our business. In
essence, Sonic's medical leadership philosophy provides the vital
ingredients necessary for good medical practice.
It was agreed that within the context of Sonic's embedded
federation-of-practices model, each Sonic subsidiary would operate
as a "Specialist Medical Diagnostic Practice", so that the concept
of medical leadership would be allowed to flourish at local
practice level and in the wider context of the expanding group as a
whole. Moreover, it was agreed that, because of its importance to
Sonic's customers and to its own future, the specific
attributes comprising the medical leadership model would need to be
audited on a regular basis, so that this corporate trait would not
become diluted.
The Sonic leadership group identified four essential components
underpinning Sonic Healthcare's medical philosophy. These are now
known as the "four pillars" of the Sonic Healthcare Foundation
Principles and are all significantly influenced by the overarching
concept of medical leadership itself.
The four Foundation Principles, in the setting of a medical
leadership environment, are designed to provide all of Sonic's
staff with essential and fundamental guidelines to the interaction
between ourselves and our external customers, principally doctors
and patients. The group endorsed the elegantly simple concept that
our reputation would, and should, arise from our natural behaviour
towards our customers.
The Foundation Principles reflect the medical essence of Sonic
Healthcare. They express features which are specifically
appropriate for a healthcare company and which we believe are
equally important to our customers. They are
• technical excellence in our medical testing
and reporting,
• the showcasing and sharing of our highly
specialised medical knowledge,
• providing our patients with the best possible
service and
• delivering localised and personalised services
to our referring doctors.
Since the meeting in 2001, the Sonic Healthcare Foundation
Principles have continued to exert a major influence on the
development of Sonic Healthcare and how it and each of its
operating practices are viewed by referring doctors and
patients.
The Foundation Principles, together with the Sonic Core Values and
the unique federation model are now the major determinants of
Sonic Healthcare as a company. They have been instrumental in Sonic
Healthcare's expansion into the UK, Europe and the USA, where
like-minded diagnostic companies have elected to join with Sonic to
promote a medically-oriented and profession-based operation on the
global stage.