Learn from the past to plan the future

The North East Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) is banking on a new publication – which covers the history of northeastern Ontario's 20 community hospitals – to help kick-start new conversations about the North's health-care system.

“In many ways, the northeast’s community hospitals are at a new crossroad with patient care – they face the challenge of contributing to the care of an older population with chronic health problems, and the desire of people to remain living at home in the communities they helped build,” said Louise Paquette, CEO of the North East LHIN.

On Thursday, the North East LHIN released “Community Hospitals and Health Care in Northeastern Ontario: Transforming the Patient Experience,” a document that chronicles the changing role of community hospitals, as well as the shifting economic landscape and demographics of the northeast.

The document also looks at new tools to help hospitals overcome their often remote and rural locations, including advancements in science, technology, pharmacology and communications.

“The needs are different (today),” Paquette said. “People want home and community care. So how do we respond to that in way that is respectful of the community's past?”

Derek Graham, CEO of the Manitoulin Health Centre, said his community hospital has started to collaborate more with other health organizations on Manitoulin Island to break down the silos that impede patient care.

“It was important for us to admit that we were part of the problem,” Graham said. “We had barriers to information sharing that existed within our organization.”
In recent years, Graham said the Manitoulin Health Centre has taken steps to make it easier for different health care providers to share patient records with each other.

To improve home care services, the hospital also collaborates with the North East Community Care Access Centre and a number of federally funded organizations that provide health care services to the island's First Nations communities.

David Robinson, a Laurentian University economics professor, provided input for the North East LHIN's new publication, and said Northern Ontario is ahead of the rest of the province when it comes to collaboration between providers.

“We're starting to catch up with what people have been saying the system has to do for a long time,” Robinson said.

John Lewko, a professor at Laurentian's Centre for Research in Human Development, also helped write the North East LHIN publication, and said small community hospitals need to change the services they offer.

“What we call the small hospitals, need to figure out how they're going to shift the way in which they're functioning in the community to be able to provide for the seniors who are coming along,” he said.

Currently more than 19 per cent of the population in the North East is age 65 and over. By 2036, this proportion is forecasted to increase to 30 per cent.