Health system transformation 

Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott announced on Feb. 26 that the provincial government hopes to make it easier for patients to navigate the health system by creating a central agency called Ontario Health (see more on pages 6, 10 and 17). “Nurses have been calling out our system’s failings for years. It needs to be more attentive to people, better connected, easier to navigate and more cost effective,” says RNAO President Angela Cooper Brathwaite. The new legislation, if passed, will fold 20 existing provincial health-care agencies into Ontario Health. These include Cancer Care Ontario, Health Quality Ontario, e-Health Ontario, Trillium Gift of Life Network, and HealthForceOntario. Direct services, including some provided currently by Local Health Integration Networks (LHIN) will be devolved to health providers who will work as members of local Ontario Health Teams (OHT) that bring together service providers in primary care, acute care and home care. (The Manitoulin Expositor, March 6)