BY NORM TOLLINSKY

The Northeast LHIN is poised to begin evaluating integration initiatives proposed by hospitals and health-care organizations aimed at streamlining back office functions and the delivery of clinical services.

There are four goals, says Rémy Beaudoin, executive director of the Northeast LHIN: improved access, improved client experience, improved health and greater efficiency.

The Northeast LHIN board will provide funding through the winter to build a business case for the most promising of the proposals and deliver a final plan by March.

Additional funds will be made available beginning in April to implement the proposals deemed best able to achieve the LHIN’s goals.

Beaudoin pointed to the NEON group’s sharing of information system services as an example of the kind of integration the LHIN is looking to build upon. The NEON group is already serving half of the hospitals in the northeast, but could be expanded to provide all back office functions for health-care organizations in the region, producing economies of scale and standardization throughout the region, he said.

Collaboration

“There is a lot of collaboration happening in the northeast and a lot of good work that has been done, especially in Information Systems, but it has all been done on a voluntary basis with no clear driver and no clear end state, and now we’re providing this.”

As for clinical services, “we need to work together in order to make the system seamless for the client,” said Beaudoin. “The objective is not to integrate structurally, but to have service agreements across the different sectors in such a way that as a patient enters the health-care system, no matter which door they enter, it will feel like it is one system.”

Citing the current Alternative Level of Care crisis, Beaudoin foresees programs that would address the needs of patients sharing a typical condition in order to keep them in the community and out of emergency rooms. The Community Care
Access Centre, community support services, mental health and addiction services and community health centres, he said, would all be part of a solution.

ALC patients

It’s when patients, especially the frail elderly, are not served in a co-ordinated and integrated way that they end up as ALC patients in hospitals, said Beaudoin.

“We’ll have dedicated resources, staff and care pathways, so when the patient arrives in Emergency, he would be flagged and the program would be made available. We’ll do it client-by-client and condition-by -condition.”

Beaudoin is confident that health-care organizations are supportive of the LHIN’s goals.
“I think they’re very positive about it because of the way we’re approaching it. We are clearly stating the objective.

However, we have not established the pathway to achieve it. We are simply saying, ‘This is where we want to go,’ and calling on the community to propose projects. We’re not imposing anything.”

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