LHIN falls short of performance indicators

Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk also found the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care has failed to properly define the LHINs' roles.

“Our audit found that the Ministry has not clearly defined the attributes of an ‘integrated health system,’nor does it have any way to measure how effective LHINs are as planners, funders and integrators of health care,” Lysyk said after tabling of her report.

The rest of the province did not fare much better than the North East LHIN.

Combined, the province's 14 LHINs improved their performance for six out of 15 indicators in the last eight years, but the remaining nine areas either stayed consistent or deteriorated, especially since 2010.

Cynthia Stables, the North East LHIN's director of community engagement, said the auditor general's report was comprehensive and well done, but added it is difficult to compare North Eastern Ontario, with its specific geographic and social concerns, to cities like the Toronto.

“The indicators are complicated,” she said. “It is difficult to compare different parts of the province based on numbers.”

Stables said that while the North East LHIN did not meet most of the province's performance indicators when the audit was performed in March, it was close to reaching five more at that time.

“There are another five indicators where we are within 10 per cent of reaching the target,” she said.

Stables added the North East LHIN has seen big improvements in some areas, including wait times for hip and knee replacement surgeries.

In 2012-2013, for example, the average wait time for a hip replacement surgery in the North East was 275 days.

In the second quarter of 2015 that average wait time dropped to 148 days, below the target of 182 days.

“We're going in the right direction, and it takes time,” Stables said. “Do we do everything as well as other areas of the province? No, but we need to learn from other areas.”

Nickel Belt MPP France Gélinas, the NDP's health critic, said the province created the LHINs in 2007 to give Ontario's various regions more autonomy managing health care services.

But Gélinas said that even with the 14 LHINs, the big health care decisions have stayed centralized in Toronto.

“We can't say because we have the LHINs in place better decisions have been made,” she said.

Gélinas said the LHINs need more regional autonomy to make decisions based on the local health data they gather on a regular basis. 

The Auditor General's report also brought attention to the growing backlog of critical-incident

and complaint inspections at Ontario’s 630 long-term-care homes.

Lysyk found the backlog of critical-incident and complaint inspections doubled between December 2013 and March 2015, to 2,800 from 1,300. Such delays can place residents at risk.

“This is awful,” said Gélinas. “You don't get into a long-term care home if you're not frail and in need of a lot of care.”

Sudbury MPP Glenn Thibeault said the provincial government is taking the auditor general's report very seriously.

“The auditor general has a tough role, and a tough job, and I respect the work she does,” he said. “I think government always needs to find ways it can get better.”

 

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