Ontario is embarking
on yet another transformation of its provincial government health care system
with its creation of Ontario Health Teams which will replace the LHINs. The LHINS (Local Health Integration Networks)
were created in 2006 to create regionally integrated health delivery systems to
essentially streamline services. The
move to a regional approach in Ontario at the time was a bit late given that
most other provinces that had gone the regional/decentralization approach had
done that in the 1990s and in the early 21st century began to move
away from the approach. This continual
restructuring of health care service delivery in Canada has if anything been
quite disruptive and we are now about to undergo another round of it in Ontario.
The LHINs were to have
jurisdiction over hospitals, community care access centres, various community
health services as well as mental health and addiction. However, they were not given jurisdiction
over physicians, public health, diagnostics or the provincial drug spending
plans. This made the LHINs only a
partial health integration network and in the end that was probably their
undoing as the seamless one stop shopping system of care never really fully
emerged.
As for the OHTs which are going to replace the
LHINS, according to the provincial news release, this is “an
administrative step only and not a merger of the LHIN boundaries. Further,
there will be no impact to patients' access to home and community care or
long-term care placement as Ontarians continue to receive the care they need
from the care providers they have built relationships with at the 14 LHINs.
These changes are a means of streamlining the regional oversight as an interim
measure as the government continues to work toward moving home and community
care supports out of bureaucracy to integrate them with Ontario Health Teams.”
The Ontario Health Teams will be responsible for all of a patient’s care
including primary and emergency care, home and community care, palliative care,
cancer care, residential long-term care and mental health and addiction
services.
An OHT is a team of
health care providers working together to deliver at least three types of
health services – the initial call expressed a preference for a minimum of
primary care, hospitals, home care and community care. The aim is to create a truly integrated
health care system for Ontarians with seamless transitions. How many of these teams will ultimately
emerge will depend on the population size covered. If there are about 250,000 people per health
team – a not unreasonable number given the Northwest LHIN covers that amount –
then there would be about 60 teams ultimately.
Eventually, if all of this pans out, I suspect there will be anywhere from 50 to 70 of these teams
covering the entire population of Ontario and they will report to a new
centralized oversight agency – Ontario Health.
Given population aging and the impact of new technologies and drugs on
health care costs, part of the goal will also be to contain rising costs by
eliminating duplication streamlining transactions costs and thereby slowing the rate of provincial government
expenditure growth.
How is all this going
to go? Will it be effective in improving
services? Good questions. We have been
reforming health care for two decades in Canada to deal with access, coverage
and sustainability of the system and all the same issues still seem to be there
– physician shortages, long waits for services, hallway medicine – and total
spending has still grown though spending growth has moderated over the last few
years. Will this time be different? We will have to wait and see. In the meantime, this is as good a time as
any to look at the Ontario health system and its spending in more detail. Over the next few weeks, I will devote a
number of blog posts to health spending in Ontario to provide some context for
spending in the system as well as review where we have been over the last few
decades. Visit this page for updates.
