Reviews by Health Authorities Demonstrate a Responsible Approach
to Efficient and Effective Health Care Delivery

The province’s regional health authorities are embarking on operational improvements to ensure delivery of health care in the most efficient manner possible. Eastern Health outlined its operational improvements today.

“The Provincial Government has a responsibility to invest its money wisely and maintain a balance in spending that is based on what is affordable and a health care system that is sustainable for the future,” said the Honourable Susan Sullivan, Minister of Health and Community Services. “The regional health authorities’ role in this process is to implement programs and services that serve the residents of the province while being fiscally responsible in the provision of this care. Eastern Health has outlined steps to improve their operations and to make it run more effectively and efficiently while not impacting the quality of patient care.”

Eastern Health has developed a plan that will improve performance comparable to other health service providers in Canada and result in efficiencies throughout the organization. Benchmarking is a proven way to compare the costs of one health corporation to a group of similar corporations across the country. Eastern Health’s research found that it spends more than other similar organizations in Canada on similar services.

“Eastern Health embarked on a benchmarking process in 2010 that balances finding efficiencies without impacting on vital health care services,” added Minister Sullivan. “This process by Eastern Health complements the measures outlined by government in the Speech from the Throne to identify opportunities to deliver services people need in a more efficient manner so that we can live within our fiscal capacity.”

The improvement process used by Eastern Health draws upon evidence regarding best practices in quality service delivery. It will be used by other provincial health authorities in the province as they work with the Department of Health and Community Services to find more efficient ways to run their organizations, while ensuring the provision of quality care to patients is maintained.

“While we are still in the early stages of this process with Central, Western and Labrador-Grenfell Health, we will begin looking at benchmarking practices in these regional health authorities to develop practical, evidence-based plans to find savings within the system while maintaining a focus on quality and improved efficiency and effectiveness,” said Minister Sullivan. “Finding operational efficiencies does not mean reducing services or shutting down programs. Our government is committed to continuing to deliver quality health care services throughout the province as efficiently and effectively as possible and ensuring the best performance possible from our health care system.”

As details of the operational improvements are finalized within the other regional health authorities, it will be communicated with the public.

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Media contact:
Jennifer Tulk
Director of Communications
Department of Health and Community Services
709-729-1377, 699-6524
jennifertulk@gov.nl.ca

2012 05 29                      5:45 p.m.