Perth County Council received an update on the transition from Local Health Integration Networks to the province's new Ontario Health Teams.
Huron-Perth Healthcare Alliance CEO Andrew Williams made the presentation and said the local health organizations want to try to improve how they interact with one another.
"So making sure that when patients move through the system, it's coordinated," he said. "When you talk to people in the system now, they find that quite challenging."
Williams said all 52 major health organizations in the area have joined together to make an application to become one of the first Ontario Health Teams. He notes that some of the 52 local health organizations that will hopefully make up their team will focus on three key targets; mental health and addictions, palliative, and complex care.
"A good example would be palliative care. We offer palliative care services in the community, we offer them in hospitals, and we have some wonderful hospices that have recently opened in our region. So, we'll bring those groups together to look at how we're supporting patients in all settings," he said.
Despite the funding for each team now coming through one funding stream, Williams said allocation will not affect individual organization fundraising.
"There is obviously always anxiety when there's change and people will make assumptions and we want to be clear from the get-go," he said. "Fundraising dollars for organizations that currently fundraise will remain under the jurisdiction of those organizations to determine how those dollars get spent."
The 52 local health organizations within Huron-Perth have an application to become a health team due October 9, but after that, Williams said it's not totally clear what comes next.
"We expect there'll be an approval process for teams. We're hoping that all of the applications, there will be 31 of them, or the majority get approved, to go to that next step. But we don't know that yet, but we will continue to work together," he said.