The North Wellington Health Care (NWHC) board approved a balanced budget at its recent meeting.
The board had to reorganize staff and services to eliminate an initial deficit of about $600,000 from the proposed 2009-10 operating budget.
NWHC is committed by the Hospital Services Accountability Agreement (HSAA) with the Waterloo Wellington Local Health Integration Network (WWLHIN) to present a balanced budget for 2009-10.
“Following a very collaborative process involving physicians, staff and board members, we have come up with a balanced budget that ensures continued safe and efficient delivery of our core services,” said board chair Patti-Jo McLellan Shaw. “We will offer creative and efficient ways to deliver services … We realize that some decisions mean a different way of doing business but we must live within our means.”
NWHC President and CEO, Jerome Quenneville added, “Our decision making involved reviewing all support and administrative services, enhancing efficiencies and staff utilization in areas such as materials management, dietary services and environmental services before looking at direct patient care services.
“Safe patient care remains a priority. Although we have changed the model of service delivery for some programs, our community members still have access to the same range of services that they have enjoyed for many years. Some out-patients services will no longer be available at both of our hospital sites and patients might have to drive to a different site to receive their care.”
Decisions were made ensuring continued core services at each site. Those include emergency care, in-patient care, diagnostic imaging, and laboratory services.
The board agreed to a model of care where specialty services may be consolidated at one site.
Currently Oncology Care and the Dialysis Unit are structured under that model. Currently obstetrics and surgical care continue to be offered at both sites.
Highlights of some of the changes that will be implemented effective April 1 are:
– out-patient physiotherapy services will be consolidated to one site in Mount Forest at Louise Marshall Hospital. Services will be limited to what is covered by provincial health insurance or WSIB, which is a narrower scope of services than in the past. Patients, who meet revised eligibility requirements, in the North Wellington area will still have access to those services. In-patients at both hospital sites will continue to benefit from physiotherapy as determined in their care plans.
– improved utilization of operating room (OR) time and enhanced efficiency in staffing including an additional two weeks of OR closure at both sites (now a total of five weeks per site, previously three weeks per site) to generate savings. Closures will be during Christmas and March holidays plus mid-summer. After hour emergency surgeries will be provided at larger neighbouring hospitals.
– in-patients beds will be staffed according to utilization. The in-patient bed utilization cap will drop from 19 to 15 beds at each site. That results in a decrease of RPN hours.
– administrative support hours will be reduced in the clerical, switchboard, and registration roles at both sites.
– outpatient speech language pathology (SLP) service will be streamlined. Eligible people in all of the North Wellington catchment area will access that care in Palmerston.
– other savings will be generated through a laboratory review, targeted drug utilization, reduced out-patient laboratory testing, reduced cafeteria service for staff and visitors and increased transcription and health record efficiency.
The shared model of management enhances access to specialized expertise. NWHC continues to review administration costs and utilization with a goal of gaining efficiencies. NWHC works with WWLHIN partners and anticipates spending from the network’s spending in new programs such as Wait at Home, Home at Last and the GEM nurse position (Geriatric Emergency Management).
The board anticipated that the new programs (some of which are operated by the Waterloo Wellington Community Care Access Centre), will minimize unnecessary hospitalizations and enhance efficiencies.
NWHC has been working over the last year with the Family Health Teams in diabetes education and care and continues to jointly plan for optimum care for people living with other chronic diseases.
McLellan Shaw said “Hospitals are not immune to the economic climate and the recent economic downturn will add further pressure to our hospital budget.”
The NWHC Board is planning a community forum for late January.
The next stages of planning will be reviewed with our community members.
More information will be available in the new year.
