North Wellington Health Care (NWHC) has received a $584,000 provincial grant earmarked for improvements to information technology shared by health teams in Wellington County. The money is part of the Small and Rural Hospital Transformation Fund.
“North Wellington Health Care is taking the lead on the three projects aimed at improving patient access to care across services providers and doing it in a manner that efficiently uses our health services,” said MPP Jeff Leal, minister of rural affairs in announcing the funding at Louise Marshall Hospital in Mount Forest on Monday.
He was joined by hospital staff, doctors and volunteers, health care representatives and civic officials. Suzanne Trivers, executive director of the four family health teams in the county, said the funding will improve efficiency.
“What we want to look at is how do we use these IT structures to make communications work better,” she said. “How do we make our systems more patient friendly?”
The executive director said improvements will include looking at patient information and transmitting it to specialists to speed up diagnosis and treatment.
“There are a lot of different steps that are purely administrative and that takes a lot of time from treatment.”
It’s a scenario Leal, who is the MPP for Peterborough, has experienced. He noted a patient from the Lindsay area who suffered a heart attack was taken to hospital in Peterborough and received specialist diagnosis from a hospital in Hamilton to speed up the diagnosis and treatment. The electronic procedure saw the patient released from hospital within two days.
“This is the perspective I’m bringing to my role as minister of rural affairs … understanding that we need to make sure that high quality health care is accessible and available close to home in rural communities,” he said.
The programs were identified by the Waterloo Wellington Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) working with the NWHC.
LHIN chairman Joan Fisk said the funding will address rural needs.
“It shows the needs of rural communities are different than those in urban areas,” she said. “Improve access to health care … so you get the right care at the right place at the right time.”
Perth-Wellington MPP Randy Pettapiece said the funding will help keep “our hospital and health care strong.”
Mayor Ray Tout said improving service to residents of rural areas is essential.
“It’s great to have that service in our own backyard,” the mayor said.
Warden Chris White noted the county is looking at possible funding of hospitals within its boundaries. The latest request came from NWHC at the last county meeting. The group has asked the county for $1.2 million in funding for upgrades at the Mount Forest and Palmerston hospitals.
“Hospitals is one of the things we’re taking a serious look at,” the warden said.
Dr. Simon Goodall, NWHC chief of staff, welcomed the funding.
“This kind of stuff is going to benefit everybody, especially our population,” the doctor said.
CEO Jerome Quenneville said staff “appreciate the good News.”
