Former OHA President Tom Closson speaking at Longwood’s Breakfast With The Chiefs June 10.
The relentless pursuit of efficiency may be coming to an end for Ontario hospitals.
Thank goodness.
As former OHA chief Tom Closson said today at Longwood’s Breakfast With The Chiefs forum, year after year it gets more difficult for hospital CEOs to balance their budgets — “you can’t cut the same thing as you cut last year.”
This hardly means that hospitals are about to enter a new era of sustainable funding, especially in Ontario where public health care spending is already the lowest per capita of any Canadian province. Closson says Ontario hospitals also have the lowest worked hours per weighted case, the shortest length of stay in acute care, and the fewest beds per capita.
Have we found bottom yet?
Closson says we still have to reduce costs “because we have to.” Instead of seeking more efficiency, a new approach is needed.
Closson was joined by the Hay Group’s Mark Hundert and Chris Helyar to preach the new orthodoxy of appropriateness and to suggest that the HBAM (Hospital Based Allocation Model) of funding needs fixing.
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