The Saskatchewan Health Authority took as step forward in its change from multiple health regions to a single governing health authority. The Minister of Health, Jim Reiter introduced Scott Livingstone as the new CEO of the Saskatchewan Health Authority. 

"The board of directors ensured a very thorough process," the minister explained, "and they arrived on Scott and I'm comfortable with that decision."

"Scott's got an extensive background in healthcare administration in the province and his credentials speak for themselves. I'm very much looking forward to working with him."

Dick Carter, Chairman of the Health Board spoke about that experience.

"What the board found with Scott is that he's been in charge of a couple of health related files, the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency and eHealth. Scott also has a clinical background as a pharmacist and understand the system. Scott brought a great deal of experience to us."

The Minister also mentioned the challenges that the new CEO faces. 

"Normally to be appointed to a role like this, you're taking over a large operation. This is an operation that doesn't exist yet. He's going to have to put together a senior management team and go through a number of different processes."

"We have a transition team that is doing a lot of work. Obviously some of the things like putting together a senior management team needed to wait until we had the CEO."

"This is huge. This will be the biggest operation in the province so there's going to be some bumps along the way but I'm happy with what I've seen so far."

As for the hiring process, the Minister of Health added that the board had many strong candidates but by the end, the choice was clear. 

"I think what was important was that we got the right person for the job. Certainly we wanted to get the right person and I trust the board of directors to do the interview and that."

"I would ask for updates on occasion but I left it up to them. When they came forward with Scott as  a recommendation, I was comfortable with that and that was the recommendation I took to cabinet."

Livingstone also expressed his enthusiasm for taking on this position. 

"There was two reasons that interested me in the role, one was just the opportunity that it presents to recreate the Saskatchewan health system form the ground up instead of inheriting an existing team, I get the opportunity to build one."

"And the other one is through some of the work I've done in both my past experience with the Cancer Agency and most recently with the transition team, is looking at the passion across this system for change and leaders across our system that are ready for change. Being able to harness that change and move forward with the blueprint provided to us by the advisory panel are two primary reason."

He expects to hit the ground running but understands that it is a group effort to bring the health authority into reality.  

READ MORE: Province Appoints Board Of Directors For Soon-To-Be Amalgamated Health Authority