WIDE Bay's health chief has an ambitious three-year plan to slash public hospital waiting times to 18 weeks.

Wide Bay Hospital and Health Service chief executive Adrian Pennington said he believed it was achievable but the organisation might not be able to reach the target in every specialty.

He said already in the two years since he'd been hired, the maximum waiting time for patients had been reduced from 16.9 years to two years.

"We're looking to develop, within the next 12 to 18 months, a six-month maximum wait," Mr Pennington said.

"In order to be able to sustain this we have to create an environment of an organisation that people want to come and work for.

"The whole approach is about getting our doctors and senior clinicians involved in what we do."

The organisation had been able to drive down waiting times by focusing on the staff who delivered care, he said.

"We've identified so much inefficiency it's unbelievable," he said.

He said doctors at the hospitals were looking at referral letters from GPs straight away so the organisation better understood the demand for the next 12 months.

"It's a different approach," Mr Pennington said. "It's important in terms of the quality of care we deliver."

He told the health service's accountants to stop counting in dollars and to count in lives.

"It's about doing what's right and developing a culture of that," Mr Pennington said.

The organisation had a social responsibility to provide healthcare to people who couldn't afford private care "to ensure that we do what's right for the community", he said.