It's anticipated the establishment of an Ontario Health Team in Sarnia-Lambton will be approved in about a month.
Local healthcare partners are submitting their full application to the province.
Speaking on behalf of the steering committee, Bluewater Health CEO Mike Lapaine said the initial self-assessment was approved in August, after being delayed since March because of the pandemic.
"We've done a tremendous amount of work in the last three to four weeks to get the full application prepared," said Lapaine. "It's to be submitted by September 18 and we've been told the approval to establish an Ontario Health Team will occur on October 19."
Bluewater Health President and CEO Mike Lapaine.
He said the application to the health ministry focuses on seniors care, youth mental health and addiction support, and outlines five performance measures they'll be accountable to in the first year.
"The first one is avoidable emergency visits for conditions best managed elsewhere, wait times for first home care service from the community, acute care patients who had a follow-up visit within seven days of discharge, timely access to primary care and how many patients were hospitalized for ambulatory care sensitive conditions."
Bluewater Health is one of more than 35 local health and social service organizations involved in the initiative.
County council endorsed the full application and authorized signing off on it before it's submitted.
Councillors also made it clear the application is to have no cost to the County of Lambton.
The intention to create regional health teams across the province was announced after the Progressive Conservative's declared plans to disband Ontario's 14 Local Health Integration Networks.
Ontario Health Teams are geared to serve groups of 50,000 to 300,000 people and will be accountable for service delivery and system performance in their respective areas.