Health care providers in Sioux Lookout, Dryden, Red Lake, and Ignace are working together to streamline access to health for patients.
The province announced late last week that a series of new Ontario Health Teams had been approved. One of those is the Kiiwetinoong Healing Waters Ontario Health Team, which will serve a large area of Northwestern Ontario.
“It is a commitment by the organizations to come together and work together more effectively and more efficiently,” said Sue LeBeau, the president and chief executive officer of the Red Lake Margaret Cochenour Memorial Hospital. “We have at our table agencies that I may not have spoken to before or worked with before that now are at the same table.”
The new entity brings together several agencies and organizations from across the region. It includes the hospitals in Sioux Lookout, Red Lake, and Dryden, along with the Kenora District Services Board and several other health care providers and health centres.
It covers a vast geographic area, LeBeau said.
“It encourages us to think as a region. So, what we’ll be looking at is what are some of the issues we have in common," she said.
"What are some of the things that would be more effective working together as opposed to trying to solve individually? Because our patients follow similar pathways and access services similarly, although there are differences in each community, what are some of those things we can be effective at by pooling our knowledge, pooling out resources, and pooling our capabilities.”
As part of this collaboration, the team's priority is to share resources and decision-making power.
“If there is an opportunity to implement a program, grow a program or start something different, or even end a [program], these decisions will be discussed as a group instead made by individual organizations,” LeBeau said.
Another priority is the streamlining of services by allowing easily accessible information in a digital database to help with patient transitions from one place to the next.
“What it will enable us to do is build relationships to work together more seamlessly so that patients’ transitions of care don’t feel like transitions,” said LeBeau.
The database will make it easier for physicians to access up-to-date patient records from one clinic to the next to meet patient needs.
For example, a patient with the Red Lake Margaret Cochenour Memorial Hospital may be sent to Sioux Lookout Meno Ya Win Health Centre to see a specialist. Having access to the patient’s records will cut down the wait time it takes to send the patient’s file between hospitals.
LeBeau said the storage of patient information is done with consent from the patient.
“What’s unique about this opportunity is that we are working with outside agencies that are beyond the traditional confines of health care,” LeBeau said. “So, we have municipal partners at the table. We have friendship centres. People who impact the determinants of health. That’s what I feel is exciting about this. It brings others to the table who weren’t there before.”
