Strong Action To Improve Health Care

Today, over two million more Ontarians have a family doctor, thousands more nurses are on the job and 23 new hospitals have been built or are underway.

Those are just a few of the highlights in Ontario’s 2012 Progress Report. The annual Progress Report details Ontario’s accomplishments in putting patients first, while ensuring the future sustainability of our health care system.

The McGuinty government is driving improvements by finding new and better ways to deliver health care. These initiatives include:

• Making it easier than ever to get your free flu shot close to home — through your family doctor, nurse-led flu immunization clinics and now at participating pharmacies. Specially trained pharmacists can give the flu shot to Ontarians, age five and over.

• Twenty-four nurse practitioner-led clinics are open and serving patients. Two more will open this year.

• Over 215,000 more Ontarians received home care last year, helping seniors who want to live independently do so while freeing up hospital beds and staff in hospitals and long-term care centres.

• Two hundred Family Health Teams were created working to provide health care services to 2.8 million Ontarians, including 42 new teams in the North.

• Two new midwife-led birth centres will give moms more choice in where they deliver babies, freeing up hospitals to handle higher-risk deliveries.

The Progress Report shows we’re on the right track, but we’ve got to keep innovating so our health care system is there for our children and grandchildren. That’s why Ontario has an Action Plan for Health Care to ensure families get the best care where and when they need it, while ensuring better value for health dollars. Action Plan initiatives underway include:

• Patient-based hospital funding, so that hospitals are funded based on how many patients they see, the services they deliver, and the quality of those services.

• The Healthy Kids Panel to tackle childhood obesity.

• The Seniors Care Strategy to help seniors stay healthy and live at home longer.

• Expanded availability of smoking cessation programs to addiction treatment centres.

• Home care for 90,000 more seniors, including 3 million more personal support worker hours.

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