Ontario to Streamline the Management of Health Care

New Legislation aimed to reduce hallway health care, by eliminating gaps in services, and focusing spending on care where patients need it.

March 13, 2019

Queen’s Park – The people of Ontario deserve a publicly funded healthcare system that maximizes public funds to get the best and highest quality results. For too long Ontario’s healthcare system has been broken, locked away into silos preventing Ontarians from accessing services when they need them quickly and efficiently. For over a decade this system has created layers of bureaucracy that have added to inefficiencies preventing the necessary resources from reaching patients and front-line staff. People needing health care are too often caught in the gaps in our health care system and end up on a waiting list or being treated in a hallway. That’s why our government, with legislation introduced by Minister of Health and Long-Term Care Christine Elliott, is proposing changes that would establish a more connected, efficient and appropriate management of health services in the interests of the patient.

We will establish Ontario Health Teams, with doctors and nurses who understand local needs working together to enable easy transitions from one medical service to another. We will integrate multiple provincial health agencies and programs into one agency with a single authority and accountability to oversee the health care system. This agency would enable better care, more seamless care and transfer of vital information between a patient’s health providers. As a single agency resources throughout the system would meet needs of patients faster and more efficiently while focusing resources to our front-line staff.

Quotes by Effie Triantafilopoulos MPP

“This necessary change to Ontario’s healthcare system is long overdue. This transformation of our healthcare system will streamline patient centered care, and it will manage the health care sectors resources efficiently for better outcomes. I am pleased that our government will work to eliminate duplication and bureaucracy and spend health dollars where they are needed – on patients and frontline doctors and nurses.”

Quick Facts

• The government intends to introduce legislation that would, if passed, support the establishment of local Ontario Health Teams that connect health care providers and services around patients and families, and integrate multiple existing provincial agencies into a single health agency – Ontario Health.

• The entire process will be seamlessly phased in to ensure that Ontarians can continue to contact their health care providers as usual throughout the transition process.

• The government has consulted with patients, families, nurses, doctors and others who provide direct patient care, including the Premier’s Council on Improving Healthcare and Ending Hallway Medicine and its working groups, the Minister’s Patient and Family Advisory Council, and health system and academic experts.

• Ontario currently has a large network of provincial and regional agencies, clinical oversight bodies and 1,800 health service provider organizations. This creates confusion for both patients and providers trying to navigate the health care system.