WELLINGTON COUNTY – On Feb. 26, Health Minister Christine Elliott announced the provincial government’s plans for a “super agency” to replace local and provincial health networks.
A new legislation, the People’s Health Care Act, yet to receive royal assent, would see the province’s 14 Local Health Integration Networks (LHIN) dissolved and merged with six other health agencies including Cancer Care Ontario, eHealth and others.
The central agency, called Ontario Health, will replace the LHINs with “Ontario Health Teams” made up of local health care providers who will help families and individuals navigate the new system.
The government’s plan is to have 30 to 50 health teams that are each responsible for up to 300,000 people.
Elliott told the media during the announcement the aim of the system overhaul is to reduce “hallway medicine,” middle management and bureaucracy under the current system.
When reached by the Advertiser, Waterloo-Wellington LHIN spokesperson Connie MacDonald said the local LHIN was directed by the Ministry of Health not to comment on the changes.
According to MacDonald, for 2018-19 the WWLHIN received $1.17 billion to provide health care services to approximately 800,000 residents across Waterloo and Wellington County.
MacDonald said the LHIN expects to receive confirmation of the budget for Waterloo Wellington services for 2019-20 after the provincial budget is passed.
Stephen Street, CEO of Groves Memorial Community Hospital and North Wellington Health Care, said he thinks the changes could greatly benefit health care in Wellington County.
“I think it’s a great opportunity for the health system and I think it’s a great opportunity to improve the quality of care and access for our residents,” Street said.
He added, “I think the intent of the legislation is to reduce some of the duplication between organizations and to integrate services to create more efficiency and … to be able to reallocate some resources to frontline care.
“Whether that is consolidating some back-office services amongst agencies to reduce administrative costs, that is going to give us an opportunity to redirect funds.”
In her announcement, Elliott said the government is expecting regional health providers to form the proposed Ontario Health Teams between themselves rather than through government enforcement.
Street told the Advertiser health care providers in Wellington County are already ahead of the game.
“Our leaders and our volunteering boards and governors recognized long ago the need to work together in partnership and we have created a Rural Wellington Healthcare Advisory Group,” he said.
The group has representatives from family health teams in Erin, Centre Wellington, Wellington North and Minto-Mapleton, as well as from hospitals in Fergus, Mount Forest and Palmerston, and from home community care and Community Mental Health and Homewood Health Services.
According to Street, the group has worked together for the last nine years, regularly meeting to discuss patient issues.
“We are going to be meeting in the next week or so to talk about how we can leverage this legislation to take that cooperative spirit to the next level, but we have a great opportunity here. We are not starting from scratch,” Street said.
Perth-Wellington PC MPP Randy Pettapiece stressed a centralized agency will benefit health care in the area.
“This legislation recognizes the important work rural family health teams do in their communities. It will give our frontline health care providers the resources they need to focus on the entire patient care plan,” Pettapiece stated in a recent press release.
However there remains a lot of uncertainty surrounding how the new funding model will work.
In the current system Groves and North Wellington hospitals work within a fixed budget from the Waterloo-Wellington LHIN.
Within the budget the hospitals have certain quotas they are expected to meet such as emerge visits and ambulatory care visits. Street explained the hospitals work with the LHIN to develop those quotas over time.
He added it is unclear how much funding hospitals could expect under the new system.
“Is it going to be a per capita funding that a population receives or is it going to be based on an aggregation of what everyone is currently funding at today? I don’t have clarity on that,” Street said.
The success of the changes, Street added, may rest on the digital health care tools the government said it would also roll out.
“I would say the technology is the greatest challenge and the greatest opportunity and our critical success factor for this legislation,” he said.
Currently, systems used by hospitals, family physicians and home and community care providers do not effectively “talk” to each other.
There are links between the systems, but not complete integration.
“Until we [have an integrated system] we will not achieve all of the efficiencies envisioned by our governments’ direction,” Street said.
About the WWLHIN
Currently the local LHIN has 455 employees, 96 of whom oversee the spending of its $1.17 billion in funding. The majority, 359 employees, are nurses, occupational therapists, social workers, and other health professionals.
A billion dollars goes to hospitals, long-term care homes, mental health and addiction treatments, and community supports.
A further $170 million is used to provide services including home and community care services in patients’ homes, long-term care homes, retirement homes, palliative care, discharge planning and other care in hospitals, and more.
Also included in the $170-million portion, is $104 million given to private service providers who contract nurses, personal support workers and therapists for home care delivery.
