Most people are aware of some of the formal partnerships between hospitals in Midwestern Ontario.
Wingham and Listowel have a formal partnership. The Huron-Perth Healthcare Alliance is a partnership between the hospitals in Clinton, Seaforth, Stratford and St. Marys. But not as much is known about the many informal agreements that allow the hospitals to work as a system.
Wingham and Listowel CEO Karl Ellis says the expansion of the hospital in Wingham, which will include a new oncology department, would serve residents of Huron and South Bruce who now have to go to either Owen Sound, Stratford or London.
HPHA CEO Andrew Williams says all of the hospitals work together to control patient flow but the alliance also has a shared lab program across 11 hospitals, shared pharmacies, shared information technologies and specialists routinely move from site to site.
Williams adds the partnerships are clearly driven by funding but he says they definitely provide efficiencies and the more the hospitals can work together the better patient care they can provide.
Andrews says funding constraints have definitely forced hospitals to find different ways of delivering service. He says if they were delivering service today the way they did 20 years ago, there would be a lot of negative feedback from the community.
