OMNI must be part of talks about health care reform: CEO
Friday, December 10, 2004 - Roderick Benns
OMNI's CEO, Fraser Wilson, says a recent community workshop held to identify issues that will lead to Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) was wonderfully collaborative, not territorial.

Held in Markham recently, the meeting was meant to inspire ideas from the grassroots and establish stakeholder priorities, an approach that ended up being very productive, according to Fraser.

"I was taken with the sheer depth of services provided by the community. Once everyone got together, (we discovered) people had a lot in common," says OMNI's CEO.

Fraser says smaller community service providers communicated they felt like they were always on the outside, looking in. "But they got the inclusiveness they wanted and deserved through this format" and they appreciated it, says Fraser.

Long-term care was represented well, says Fraser, although he notes hospitals were noticeably under-represented.

The Province's aim is for LHINs to enhance and support local capacity to plan, co-ordinate, integrate and fund the delivery of health services at the community level.

LHINs are expected to co-ordinate service delivery, so existing provider organizations will continue to be relied upon to deliver services.

Fraser says out of all the priorities established at the LHINs meeting, he helped to drive the idea of seamless services for seniors, which ended up ranking high on the patient care list of priorities at the meeting.

At the meeting, participants had to identify the issues themselves. Participants identified 45 different items of interest, which led to 45 different discussion groups. From this large list the top five administrative points and the top five patient care points were gathered.

"There was great consensus for the improving and co-ordination of services within the whole continuum," says Fraser, noting how important it is for seniors to not have to face bureaucracy when they need care.

OMNI's future role, as the Province continues with its stakeholder engagement process, is to continue to be at the table, says Fraser.

"We have to be a part of the conversation on health care transformation. We have to dialogue and understand the concerns of other providers of services, too," he adds.

Fraser says the government should be supported in its momentum to create true transformation in the health care sector.

"People are open to dialogue now on creating system-wide change. We have to build on that."