Southlake Regional Health Centre is getting a $5.1-million injection from the province to expand its home and community care services in a bid to end “hallway health care” in the overburdened Newmarket hospital.
The funding will be directed to two programs, Southlake@home and a geriatric admission diversion clinic, as part of the Ontario government plan to address overcrowding in hospitals, Deputy Premier and Health Minister Christine Elliott announced today in a rehabilitation room at the hospital.
"Expanding home and community care is a critical part of our plan to end hallway health care," said Elliott, MPP for Newmarket-Aurora. "By making these significant investments at Southlake and supporting partnerships between home and community care providers and busy hospitals, patients will experience quicker transitions between receiving hospital care and returning home with the appropriate support they need to properly recover. These investments will also ensure that more hospital beds are available for those who need them."
"Southlake has been experiencing higher-than-average rates of patient care in unconventional spaces," added Elliott.
“In the long term, we need to focus resources where they will have the greatest impact, so that we will have enough space for everyone who needs to be here, so our gyms can be gyms” said Arden Krystal, president and CEO of Southlake, in reference to the need to convert the rehab room to a patient overflow area when patient volumes peak.
“Strategic investments, like those announced today, enable us to work directly with home care organizations and long-term care providers. This will have a significant impact in reducing overcrowding at Southlake and allow patients to receive high-quality care in more appropriate settings,” Krystal said.
Southlake@home, a local success story that has been attracting attention from health care providers across the province, is a home and community care program providing acute care patients with a seamless transitional plan of care that gets them home sooner, said Elliott.
Prior to Southlake@home, complex patients could wait at the hospital for more than 14 days for the services they needed at home to be arranged, Krystal said.
"Getting these patients home sooner means we have more capacity to care for patients who need hospital care. But it also means patients are getting the care in the most appropriate setting, their home," she said, adding the program has reduced overall costs in the patient's health journey between hospital and home.
Newmarket resident Judy Smith spoke of the positive impact that the Southlake@home program had when her 94-year-old mother-in-law, Reta, fell at her nearby retirement home and fractured both her ankles.
"After 10 weeks on this program, she was able to walk using her walker. Care transition was smooth and seamless, continuity of care existed, and I was able to be a daughter-in-law and not the care provider," Smith said. "(Reta) wants to thank the province, and the ministry and Southlake for looking at innovative solutions for bundled care that focuses on their patients."
The geriatric admission diversion clinic, which will be open seven days a week, will enable patients who are seniors to be diverted from the emergency department to receive treatment.
The $5.1-million investment in Southlake is part of the government's overall investment of $45 million this year toward innovative integrated care models that will assist hospitals “overwhelmed” by the demand for their services, Elliott said.
Overall, the government is investing an additional $155 million this year to expand home and community care across Ontario.
