PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
BUILDING ON SMALL SUCCESSES NOW THAT WE HAVE LIVED through more than 16 months of this pandemic, it’s worth taking time to reflect on what has transpired, including the good work and gains these last few months. After approximately three years of back and forth, CHES and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) have agreed on the appropriate CRA organizational category for CHES to be registered under. CHES and the CSA Group still have no formal contract in place regarding our membership’s access to CSA healthcare standards. However, both parties have agreed that until CSA plans to discontinue the current offering of unlimited access, there is no urgency to finalize this contract. The CSA’s qualified medical gas operator training course has been available online for some time. I am pleased to report a number of people have signed up and completed the new course. None too soon as well. COVID-19’s impact on the provision of safe and reliable medical gases has been far-reaching. I encourage you to take advantage of this qualified operator course as part of your ability to manage this pandemic. Financially, CHES remains on budget, albeit a modest one. We continue to manage the balance of investments versus holding cash to ensure we are properly covered operationally, but not at the determent of long-term stability. I have no doubt CHES will be fine. The 2021 CHES National (Virtual) Conference will take place Sept. 28-29. Given we had no experience in pulling off a virtual event a year ago, nor was this a consideration at the time, the planning committee has done extremely well. I’d like to thank Craig Doerksen and his team for taking a ‘blank sheet of paper’ and assembling our first-ever virtual conference, which is shaping up to be a noteworthy event. I strongly encourage everyone to attend since you can do so from anywhere. We’re just a little over a year out from the 2022 International Federation of Healthcare Engineering (IFHE) Congress, which will be held in tandem with our national conference. Jim McArthur and his international planning group are now ramping up their activity for what we expect to be CHES and IHFE’s first in-person conference in more than two years. It’s a difficult task to plan for an event when you’re not sure where the world will be with COVID in a year’s time, but I remain hopeful. All in all, it’s been a ‘fruitful’ few months given the foreboding environment we faced not long ago. We’re not done yet; however, the light at the end of the tunnel is shining even brighter than it was in spring.
Roger Holliss CHES National president
EARN CONTINUING EDUCATION CREDITS FROM CHES Members of the Canadian Healthcare Engineering Society can earn free continuing education units (CEU) by reading the Summer 2021 issue of Canadian Healthcare Facilities and passing a quiz based on articles in the issue. Once you’ve read the issue from cover to cover, simply go online to www.surveymonkey.com/r/FKKYQCJ to take the quiz. CHES members who pass the quiz will be able to claim one contact hour (0.1 CEU) on their CanHCC or CCHFM certificate renewals.
8 CANADIAN HEALTHCARE FACILITIES
