Horizon’s Strategic Plan 2025-2030: Transforming Health Care Through Innovation

About Our Strategic Plan

Horizon’s new Strategic Plan is our road map to transform health care through innovative solutions. Over the next five years, in collaboration with our staff, physicians, patients, clients and communities, we will redesign the way we deliver health care to create a better and healthier future for New Brunswickers.  

As the largest health authority in the province, we will ensure New Brunswickers have access to care when they need it, delivered by our dedicated and highly skilled health care team. 

Our Strategic Plan includes four strategic pillars:

Quality and Safe People-Centred Care is foundational to the plan and reinforces our commitment to improve patient experience and drive the desired health outcomes.  

The plan is further supported by seven key enablers
that will directly support our strategic initiatives. These include:

Continuous Improvement to create efficiencies in how care and services are delivered.

Financial Sustainability related to funding allocation and budget accountability.

Evidence-Driven Decision-Making focused on data and evidence, ensuring our actions are informed by best practices and proven outcomes. 

Organizational Culture to support and drive the desired outcomes.

Strategic Partnerships that create more capacity to achieve our initiatives and collaboration with government to support the advancement of provincial initiatives.

Environments, including: 
– Environmental stewardship to shape a healthier, eco-conscious health care landscape; and 
– Sustainable, optimized, safe spaces and resources to support strategic initiatives. 

Technology, including tools, information and resources accessible by staff, physicians, patients and clients to advance how care is provided.

Our plan is the result of the expertise and guidance of Horizon’s executive and senior leadership teams and the Board of Directors, who led extensive consultation with staff and physicians, health care partners, community stakeholders, government partners and New Brunswickers. 

As our strategy is implemented, we will continuously measure and monitor progress against our goals to keep us accountable to the people we serve and ensure we stay on track. Outcomes will be reported regularly using the public Performance Dashboard available on this page. 

Our Goals & Commitments

The Strategic Plan outlines several ambitious goals that we aim to achieve by 2030. To help ensure we achieve these goals, we will publicly share an updated list of annual commitments each year.  

Transformative Community Care

Partner with communities to build healthier populations.

Goals by 2030:
  • Patients are attached to a family health team within their community.
  • Access to care for physical and mental health needs is available when it is needed.
  • Early diagnosis and intervention achieve better long-term health outcomes.
Our Commitments for Year 1: April 2025 – March 2026:
  • Establish nine new Family Health Teams

  • Match 10,000 patients who currently do not have a primary care provider with a Family Health Team

  • Provide 24/7 access to Emergency Mental Health teams at four regional hospitals

  • Decrease wait times for all community mental health services by 30%


Excellence in Hospital Care

Transform the delivery of clinical care to meet evolving health care needs.

Goals by 2030:
  • Patients have access to the care they need, when and where they need it.
  • Clinical outcomes and patient and client experience are optimal.
  • Transitions between care settings and teams happen smoothly.
Our Commitments for Year 1: April 2025 – March 2026:
  • Reduce emergency department wait times for patients requiring urgent care (CTAS 3) by 20%

  • Increase the percentage of surgeries completed within one year to 93%

  • Decrease wait times for non-urgent MRI exams by 60 days

  • Increase the number of patients who access TAVI services within the recommended wait time by 15%


Our People at Their Best

Create a healthy, safe and inclusive environment in which our team can excel and grow.

Goals by 2030:
  • A high-performing, diverse workforce is able to meet evolving system needs.
  • Employee and physician safety and wellness are prioritized.
  • Best-in-class learning environments provide training and development opportunities for students, staff and physicians.
Our Commitments for Year 1: April 2025 – March 2026:
  • Meet all annual hiring targets, including 663 nurses and 197 physicians

  • Maintain voluntary turnover rate at or below 8%

  • Increase the number of postgraduate learners (resident physicians) by six


Trusted Partner in Research and Innovation

Enable scalable health research and innovation to advance care.

Goals by 2030:
  • Emerging treatments provide advanced care for our patients.
  • Innovative health system delivery drives excellence.
  • Horizon is a leading research network in Canada.
Our Commitments for Year 1: April 2025 – March 2026:
  • Initiate five new AI projects

  • Increase patient enrolment in clinical trials by 15%

  • Launch a Horizon Institute for Research and Innovation


Quality and Safe People-Centred Care

Improve patient experience and outcomes through a focus on quality and safe people-centred care.

Our Performance Dashboard includes key quality and safety indicators that we monitor to evaluate our progress within this area:

  • Falls Rate 
  • Hospital-Acquired Infection Rate 
  • Overall Patient Experience 
  • Total Alternate Level of Care (ALC) Patients 

Our Performance Dashboard

As our strategy is implemented, we will continuously measure and monitor progress against our goals to keep us accountable to the people we serve and ensure we stay on track. We measure and monitor our progress through our Performance Dashboard.

As our strategy is implemented, we will continuously measure and monitor progress against our goals to keep us accountable to the people we serve and ensure we stay on track. We measure and monitor our progress through our Performance Dashboard.  

Performance Indicators help us evaluate the care and services we provide. For each performance indicator, the dashboard gives a: 

  • Baseline (based on historical performance) 
  • Horizon’s target for the current month (based on provincial and national benchmarks) 
  • Result for the current month 
  • Trend over time 

The colour codes reflect the progress made so far.

Green – Met Target

Orange – Improving Performance

Red – Below Target

To view more details regarding a performance indicator, please click directly on the indicator.
You can also use the “<” and “>” symbols below to view our progress on each performance indicator.
These reports are updated on a monthly basis.