Navigating health care from team to team may be getting a little easier in the region soon.
The region’s public-health teams have successfully been accredited together, a major milestone in Canada according to Andrew Williams, CEO of the Huron Perth Healthcare Alliance (HPHA).
“It’s the first in Canada where organizations that are separately governed have come together under the umbrella of accreditation,” Williams explained. “Our goal is to improve the care for the people we serve collectively in this community. So, we're really excited about where we are.”
Accreditation Canada is a national body that sets health and social services standards, assessing organizations against those standards to help them continuously improve the quality of their care. In short, according to Leslee Thompson, CEO of Health Standards Organization and Accreditation Canada, accreditation is a symbol of trust the community can look to when seeking care.
At a celebration on June 12, Thompson congratulated the team involved and put into perspective the work that went into this process, which spanned years.
“(The process) brought together community, hospital, primary care when they weren’t under single governance,” Thompson explained. “But they built the trust and the collaboration to deliver and ensure there was delivery of great quality of care in every setting.
“This collaboration is setting the stage for doing the accreditation, which would typically be done organization by organization independently. By coming together, this is the new model for building and strengthening quality across settings for the population.” Day-to-day, accreditation will ideally manifest by having seamless care delivery from health organization to health organization, Williams said.
“Ideally, you’re not asked the same questions multiple times. … If you have to come from long care into acute care, all the systems are coordinated,” Williams said as an example. “It really is trying to remove barriers that exist today and make it easier for patients and clients to move through the system.”
The accreditation process started in 2019, according to the HPHA’s website, with the participation of the HPHA and six health-care partners: Alzheimer Society of Huron County, Alzheimer Society of Perth County, Clinton Family Health Team, North Perth Family Health Team, Ritz Lutheran Villa/Mitchell Nursing Home and Knollcrest Lodge.
The organizations participated in the first sub-region accreditation survey in Ontario and the group was awarded “Accreditation with Commendation" and an overall score of 98.3 per cent. Williams said, when asked if this process was a success, “Ask me that in two years.”
From Williams’ perspective, though this work has been a huge undertaking and is cause for celebration, every day should be treated as an accreditation day. “We’re constantly focused on how do we make ourselves just a little bit better every single day,” he said.
Connor Luczka is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter with the Stratford Times. The LJI is a federally-funded initiative.
