How To Get More From Hospitals For Less

The Ontario government is starting to consider how to make the province’s hospital system more efficient.

The Ontario government is considering changing the way that Ontario hospitals are funded. Essentially, the new model would allocate funds based on the mix of patients and the quality of service for each individual hospital.

I am all for making the hospital system more efficient as long as it will also improve patient care. That should always be the focus of any initiative taking place in the hospital sector.

Of course, efficiency and the public sector have never gone hand in hand. Governments and organizations have made Herculean efforts to reduce costs, but as treatments get more expensive and the population gets older, this becomes an even larger challenge.

It is for this reason that I support the proposed changes being discussed by the Ontario government. By basing the funding on the needs of each individual organization, it may help to reduce the competition amongst hospitals because each one will be treated individually, based on its own patient base. Seemingly, this would mean that hospitals in communities with more older patients would receive more funding than those in communities with more young families.

Additional funding is also being proposed for hospitals that perform efficiently. This provides incentive for hospitals to control their expenses and manage their organization. I just hope that this does not lead them to make short-sighted decisions in order to keep costs down.

If this new funding proposal is to work, three things need to happen:

One, there needs to be a comprehensive way of measuring efficiency so that the focus is on the quality of patient care and maintaining (or improving upon) that quality while being more productive, not just on volume or cost savings.

Two, there needs to be a way to ensure that the funding model does not focus too much on reactive care over preventative care. Hospitals that are working on innovations that will prevent disease and sickness in old age should not have their funding reduced in order to pay for the care of older patients. The model must strike a balance.

Three, there needs to be a better way for hospitals to collaborate in a more organized way. Best practices that are shared amongst hospitals will make the entire system more efficient.

Of course there are going to be imperfections in this new funding model, but those can be worked out over time. The important thing is that the government is having the conversation about how to raise the level of efficiency of the hospital system and that it recognizes that not all hospitals provide the same services or serve the same patients. This could be the first step on the path to better and faster health care for all Canadians.