A hospital-owned long-term care home? It just might happen

Health Sciences North plans to explore new business ventures – possibly including assisted living and long-term care – with a new senior management position it expects to fill within the next couple of months.

The hospital is searching for an associate vice-president of clinical transformation and transitions, who would be responsible for developing new service delivery models and finding sources of traditional — and non-traditional — revenue sources for the hospital.

Those non-traditional revenue sources could include primary care outpatient clinics, in-home nursing services and even long-term care homes, said David McNeil, the hospital's chief nursing officer and vice-president of clinical programs.

The associate vice-president of clinical transformation and transitions would be responsible for the hospital's community rehabilitation portfolio.

“Under that portfolio we see developing potentially a number of new business ventures – through ownership or partnership – to really help transform the system,” McNeil said.

The hospital's potential expansion into new businesses falls under its mandate to improve the transitions of patient care in the community.

“We know one thing, that the demands for care are going up,” McNeil said. “(And) the hospital is not going to get any bigger.

"The policy direction is clear: that community is a place, and home is a place where care is going to be delivered.”

McNeil said the hospital would redeploy staff to cover the new manager's salary without increasing administrative costs. Any revenue the new manager brings in would also offset their salary.

As for any future business ventures outside the hospital's walls, he said they would need to make financial sense.

It's possible the business case for a long-term care home, for example, might only make fiscal sense if the hospital partners with another organization.

The change is all part of Health Sciences North's plan to become more of a health system, than just a hospital.

“It's really moving towards the idea of a health system piece,” McNeil said.