How Important is the Patients First Strategy in Ontario, Canada?

In a word, VERY.

It may be common sense but Ontario is struggling and is moving in a direction that puts the patient at the centre of their care.   The question is how will this be done, and by when? And, why hasn't this happened already.  

Ontario has introduced legislation to further improve patient access and experience and there is now an action plan in place for the public sector.

What is just as important and needs highlighting is an action plan for the private sector, or industry, those who deliver innovative solutions, technical and otherwise to help provide better care to the consumer. 

Background

Ontario introduced new legislation today that would, if passed, improve access to health care services by giving patients and their families faster and better access to care and putting them at the centre of a truly integrated health system.

The Patients First Act would give Ontario's 14 Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) an expanded role, including in primary care and home and community care. This would improve and integrate planning and delivery of front-line services and increase efficiency to direct more funding to patient care within the existing system.

The system-level changes would mean easier access to care, better coordination and continuity of care, and a greater focus on culturally and linguistically appropriate services. They would support the Action Plan by:

• Improving access to primary care for patients - such as a single number to call when they need to find a new family health care provider close to home. 
• Improving local connections and communication between primary health care, hospitals, and home and community care to ensure more equitable access and a smoother patient experience.
• Ensuring that patients only have to tell their story once, by enabling health care providers to share and update their health care plans.
• Making it easier for doctors, nurses, and other primary care providers to connect their patients to the health care they need.
• Providing smoother patient transitions between acute, primary, home and community, mental health and addictions, and long-term care.
• Improving consistency of home and community care across the province so that people know what to expect, and receive good care regardless of where they live in the province.
• Strengthening health planning and accountability by monitoring performance.
• Ensuring public health has a voice in health system planning by establishing a formal relationship between LHINs and local boards of health.
• Facilitating local health care planning to ensure decisions are made by people who best understand the needs of their communities, and that LHIN boards reflect the communities they serve.

This new legislation would support the Patients First: Action Plan for Health Care - Ontario's blueprint for health care transformation, which includes expanding access to home and community care and ensuring that every Ontarian has access to a primary care provider.

Ontario will continue working with First Nations, Métis, Inuit and urban Indigenous partners and health providers to ensure their voices are heard, in particular with respect to equitable access to services that meet their unique needs.

Ontario will honour its commitment to meaningfully engage Indigenous partners through a parallel processes that will collaboratively identify the requirements necessary to achieve responsive and transformative change. Ontario is also committed to ensuring that any proposed changes will not negatively impact their current or future access to care.

The Patients First Act is the next step in the government's plan to build a better Ontario by providing patients with faster access to the right care, better home and community care, the information they need to stay healthy and a health care system that's sustainable for generations to come.

Patients First: Action Plan for Health Care is the next phase of Ontario's plan for changing and improving Ontario's health system, building on the progress that's been made since 2012 under the original Action Plan for Health Care. It exemplifies the commitment to put people and patients at the centre of the system by focusing on putting patients' needs first.

Watch Minister Dr. Eric Hoskins speak about Patients First: Action Plan for Health Care.

The first Action Plan for Health Care promised to help build a health care system that was patient-centered. Patients First is the blueprint. It builds on that commitment and sets the framework for the next phase of health care system transformation. This plan is designed to deliver on one clear health promise – to put people and patients first by improving their health care experience and their health outcomes.

This plan focuses on four key objectives :

Minister Dr. Eric Hoskins Speech

Document Download

Year One Results - Patients First: Action Plan [PDF]

Patients First: Action Plan
for Health Care, 2015 [PDF]

Action Plan for Health Care, 2012
[PDF]

Progress Report, 2014 [PDF]

Progress Report, 2013 [PDF]

Access : Improve access – providing faster access to the right care.

When people want to take steps to prevent illness, are sick or get injured, they need to be able to get the right kind of help, whether from a family doctor, nurse-practitioner, pharmacist or a number of different care providers. Learn about your health choices :

• Learn more about your health care options and where they are
• No family health care provider? HealthCareConnect can help you find one
• Use MedsCheck for help with your medication
• Health Links

Connect : Connect services – delivering better coordinated and integrated care in the community, closer to home.

The foundation has been laid to enable the home and community care sector to meet the needs of today's population with an enhanced focus on seniors and chronic disease management. Find out more :

• Community Health Centres: promoting and protecting your family's health
• Community Care Access Centres: your gateway to home care, community and long-term care services
• Supporting seniors: Home, community and residential care services
• Public Health: supporting and protecting the health of Ontarians

Inform : Support people and patients – providing the education, information and transparency they need to make the right decisions about their health.

For Ontarians, health is also about more than the care they receive from providers. It is about living a healthier life, avoiding getting sick and learning about good ways to manage illness when it happens. Creating a culture of health and wellness will support Ontarians in making educated, informed decisions about their care. Helpful resources and tools :

Quit Smoking

• Resources to help you kick the habit
• Understanding the Smoke Free Ontario laws

Active Living, Healthy Weight

• Healthy Kids
• Fitness tools for your physical activity
• Eat right. Here's how
• Stand up to diabetes

Invest in Staying Healthy

• Get the flu shot
• What you need to know about HPV
• Strokes can be prevented
• Your blood pressure and you
• Injuries are preventable
• Screening for cancer saves lives
• Your mental health matters

Protect : Protect our universal public health care system – making evidence based decisions on value and quality, to sustain the system for generations to come.

Our universal health care system belongs to the people of Ontario. Ontarians fund it and depend on it for their health and the health of their children. With an aging population that will have a growing need for health care services, maintaining a sustainable health care system means controlling costs and targeting funding on preventing illness and improving results for patients. Examples of upcoming improvements :

• A Patient Ombudsman will be appointed to help people who have an unresolved complaint about their care at a hospital, long-term care home or Community Care Access Centre.
• Ontario will now require more public reports on how the health system is performing and how patients are being treated, including mental health, wait times, public drug programs and public health.
• A health care system that puts patients first requires the input and participation of patients. We will continue to expand how patients are engaged throughout the health care system.

For more information on Ontario's plan for changing and improving Ontario's health system see the Patients First: Action Plan for Health Care.

So, as you can see there is much here for the public, but we are working on what it means to have an action plan for industry at Tectonic. Stay tuned for future posts.

Glenn Lanteigne

President & CEO | Tectonic Advisory Services Inc. |  4145 North Service Road Suite 200, Burlington, ON L7L 6A3

) Tel: 905.336.6901 / Cel: 905.580.9536
* e-mail: [email protected] ? Twitter: @GlennLanteigne / @tectoniconline8 Web:  www.tectoniconline.com