Your Input Needed: Feedback to Ministry of Health

CAOT-BC attended the Ministry of Health (MOH) Setting Priorities presentation on April 23^rd, 2015. The presentation was delivered by Assistant Deputy Minister Ted Patterson, and was attended by representatives of various professional associations and regulatory colleges, including Resident Doctors of BC, Midwives Association of BC, BC Naturopathic Association, and others.

The presentation offered an overview of the MOH’s strategic plan to restructure BC’s health care system, which has been outlined in several policy papers published in the past year (links included below).

Letters from the Minister and Deputy Minster of Health provide context and justification for the proposed initiative, and the Setting Priorities for BC paper outlines goals, priorities and enabling strategies.  

The three proposed areas of focus include:

1. Effective primary and community care to reduce hospital use
2. Timely access to appropriate surgical care
3. Effective and sustainable rural health services

All information can be found on the Ministry of Health website

Supplementing the proposed plan are additional policy papers that outline a Patient-Centered Care Framework as well as provincial strategies for Health and Human Resources, Information Management/Information Technology (not yet published), and Health Sector Funding (not yet published).

The MOH is seeking feedback and input from stakeholders regarding their initiative. They want to know:

Have we hit the mark?

Have we hit the mark in assessing the population needs?

Have we hit the mark in focusing our efforts on those health services - primary and community care, surgical services, and rural services – which are critical to the sustainability of the publicly funded health system in B.C.?

Are there key pieces of information we have missed?

Are there gaps in our analysis, and if so, what are they?

Do you agree with the recommendations in the policy papers?

What would be the top three recommendations you would see as a priority for each paper?

Are there other cross system actions that you believe would provide better system wide results?

If you could do anything in the current system to improve it, what would it be?

CAOT-BC is currently working on a response to these questions, and your input is needed!

We are asking you to review the papers and email us your feedback by May 19^th, 2015.

Thank you!