Sonic Healthcare : Corporate Responsibility Report 2019 Opens in a new Window

Corporate

Responsibility

Report

2019

ABN 24 004 196 909

Contents

CEO Message	01
About Sonic	02
The Sonic Difference	04
-- Medical Leadership
-- Our Values
-- Foundation Principles
Pathology/Laboratory Medicine	06
Diagnostic Imaging	08
General Practice	10

Respect for Our People	12
Creating a fulfilling work environment	12
-- Employee turnover
-- Employee diversity
-- Parental leave and returning to work
-- Retaining staff from new acquisitions
-- Working with employee representatives
Staff health, safety and wellbeing	16
Professional development	18

Respect for Our Communities	20
Helping others	20
-- Catalyst Program
-- Indigenous health - Closing the gap
Improving health outcomes	28
-- Recognising our contributions to the community
Education	31

-- Enhancing the knowledge of our referrers

-- Contributing to publications, craft groups, steering committees, boards and other professional organisations

-- Training the next generation of medical professionals

Respect for Our Environment	36
A cleaner future	36
-- Our facilities
Reducing our carbon footprint	40
-- Environmentally-friendly transport options
-- Investment in solar
-- Other energy saving initiatives
Waste reduction initiatives	43
Other environmental considerations	43
-- Equipment selection

Governance	44
Meeting stakeholder expectations	44
-- Governance structure
-- Policies and charters
-- Workplace reporting
-- Risk
-- Privacy and data security
-- Practice accreditation
-- Supplier selection and management
-- Taxation governance
-- Animal testing
Key ESG Indicators	50

Verification of unaudited information in this report

Sonic Healthcare's 2019 Corporate Responsibility Report ('the Report') has been prepared to provide a general overview of Sonic's performance with respect to environmental, social and governance (ESG) topics. It should be read in conjunction with Sonic's 2019 Annual Report and other documents, such as Sonic's policies, which are published on the Sonic Healthcare website. The Report has not been subject to independent assurance, however, the information and data contained in the Report have been subject to various levels of internal review and validation to ensure the disclosures are materially accurate, complete and prepared on a consistent basis.

Cover

Dr Suzanne Danieletto,

Anatomical Pathologist, Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology in Sydney, Australia, discussing a case study on liposarcoma, a malignant tumour of soft tissue arising from the body's fat cells.

CEO Message

Developing and sustaining a strong corporate culture generates obvious benefits for organisations - financial, operational and social. It creates a shared sense of purpose and contributes to employee wellbeing and satisfaction.

Sonic Healthcare's corporate culture is predicated on a deep understanding of the importance of medicine, and the privilege that all staff feel in helping to deliver the highest quality healthcare.

From our earliest days as an emerging healthcare provider, we sought to codify how we wished to behave as an organisation, both in terms of how we wish to treat our fellow staff members, as well as how we wish to be perceived by stakeholders outside of our company. We achieved the former by asking the people who knew us best - our staff - surveying them to distil the essence of our code of conduct into five different statements that became known as Sonic's Core Values. These values include demonstrating responsibility, treating each other with respect and honesty, and maintaining confidentiality.

Sonic's core values are supported by our Foundation Principles, a set of overarching guidelines designed to provide staff with a clear understanding of the interaction between Sonic's people and its external customers - primarily patients, doctors and healthcare organisations. These principles, which include operational excellence and company conscience, provide the foundations for our culture of Medical Leadership.

Medical Leadership has become the defining element of Sonic Healthcare's culture. The belief that a healthcare company is best run by leaders with a deep understanding of the medical profession has proven to be the cornerstone of our growth and success as a company. It has also served to attract and retain some of the leading practitioners in the field, with the tenure of Sonic's staff, particularly at senior level, outstripping industry averages.

Instead of nicely worded mission statements, we have found that our commitment to a culture of Medical Leadership has worked naturally as a globally unifying force to inspire our people to achieve outstanding outcomes at quality, service and financial levels.

Sonic Healthcare lives and breathes its corporate culture with every test and every patient interaction. We understand the vital importance of the work we do. We know that doctors and patients rely on our quality, accuracy and expertise. They also rely on the care of our front-line staff, and the unseen and often heroic work of the vast network of trained professionals within Sonic who are charged with providing different modalities of patient care.

This care doesn't just reside in our laboratories, imaging centres and patient clinics, it also extends to the local and global community work that we do. From training and education, through to outreach work in developing countries, Sonic's culture and commitment to best patient care has remained an unwavering constant in an ever-changing healthcare landscape. It is a culture of which I am immensely proud, and a culture that will help us to remain true to the principles of good medicine well into the future.

The 2019 Corporate Responsibility Report captures some of the many activities in which we participate each year, in order to support communities near and far. It gives me great pleasure to present it to you for your reading.

Dr Colin Goldschmidt

CEO - Sonic Healthcare

October 2019

CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY REPORT | 2019

01

About

Sonic

Sonic Healthcare is an internationally renowned healthcare provider with specialist operations in pathology/laboratory medicine, radiology, general practice medicine and corporate medical services.

Under the leadership of a pathologist CEO, and supported by a Board of Directors with deep medical, legal, financial and operational expertise, Sonic's success stems from the belief that our global culture of Medical Leadership leads to the delivery of outstanding medical services. Medical Leadership starts at the Board level and permeates through to the day-to-day management of our subsidiaries.

Headquartered in Sydney, Australia, and listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), Sonic has grown to become one of the world's leading healthcare providers, with operations in Australia, Germany, the USA, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Switzerland, Ireland and New Zealand. We employ more than 36,000 people globally, including 1,000 pathologists and radiologists, and thousands of medical scientists, radiographers, sonographers, technicians and nurses, all of whom are led by medical personnel. Together, we proudly deliver high-quality medical and diagnostic services to more than 117 million people annually.

Our staff are supported by ongoing investments in state-of-the-art medical technologies and facilities, as well as proprietary information systems that are customised to meet the specific needs of our organisation and its stakeholders. This is backed by a firm commitment to maintaining uncompromising ethical standards in the areas of both business management and medical practice.

USA

Divisions

Pathology

Laboratory Medicine

Employees

8,044

02	CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY REPORT | 2019

Ireland	UK
Divisions	Divisions
Pathology	Pathology
Laboratory Medicine	Laboratory Medicine
Employees	Employees
67	2,219

Germany

Divisions

Pathology

Laboratory Medicine

Employees

7,530

Belgium	Switzerland
Divisions	Divisions
Pathology	Pathology
Laboratory Medicine	Laboratory Medicine
Employees	Employees
523	1,131

Australia

Divisions

Pathology

Laboratory Medicine

Radiology

Clinical Services

Employees

16,933

New Zealand

Divisions

Pathology

Laboratory Medicine

Employees

245

CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY REPORT | 2019

03