Questions and Answers
What is the LHIN and what does it do?
Local Health Integration Networks or LHINs are not-for-profit organizations responsible for planning, integrating and funding local health services across 14 different geographic areas of the province. Our area LHIN is the Hamilton Niagara Haldimand Brant (HHNB) LHIN.
LHINs are intended to be the managers of health services delivered in hospitals, long-term care facilities, community health centres, community support services and mental health agencies. LHINs took over responsibility from the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care for funding hospitals over a year ago in April 2007.
What is a Hospital Improvement Plan (HIP)?
Under its legal authority a LHIN can direct a hospital to develop a Hospital Improvement Plan. In the case of NHS, our LHIN has stated that “The HIP should be a clinical services plan that ensures that the necessary expertise and resources are available to provide accessible, quality care for the citizens of Niagara, identifies current and future hospital based services by site, establishes timeframes and specific targets for each year of the HIP, links the proposed strategies of the HIP and the public interest and achieves a balanced operating budget by 2011/12.”
Why did the LHIN ask NHS to develop the HIP?
Despite continued efforts over the last number of years to balance and despite the fact that NHS is a very efficient corporation, the hospital continues to forecast a significant deficit of over $15 million in each of the next two years on our annual budget of $370 million.
There have been ongoing discussions with the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care and with the LHIN since April, 2007 when LHIN assumed responsibility for the funding from the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. The LHIN has legal authority to ask a hospital to produce a Hospital Improvement Plan in the event a hospital does not balance its budget.
Money alone isn’t going to resolve the issues facing acute care in Niagara. As health-care providers we need to ensure we are making the best use of our people, our financial resources, our facilities and equipment.
What else needs to happen?
This is an opportunity to identify the needed community investments for the broader health system, not just hospital care. Health-care is more than hospitals. Investments in community services are vital to enable our hospital to focus on its core business of providing acute care.
As part of the HIP submitted to the LHIN, we identified community health investments needed to be made in the community – like home-care services, long-term care, transportation and primary health. For example, at any given time as many as one in three acute care beds in hospital are filled by people who no longer need this level of care and are awaiting care in another setting that is not available in Niagara. If we can remedy this situation and get these people where they need to be, then acute care beds will be available for the people who need them most and we will be using our resources appropriately.
Although these investments are outside of the hospital’s jurisdiction, they are essential in order for our hospital to focus on our core role of providing acute care and our ability to achieve long-term sustainability.