Commission on the Reform of Ontario's Public Services

Information Sharing and Use
Recommendation 5-15: The Local Health Integration Networks must integrate care across
the system by sharing information on patients among health care providers, co-ordinating
decisions and allocating funds to best reflect regional needs.
Their mandate should include the range of services described in Recommendation 5-5:
primary care physicians, acute care hospitals, long-term care, community care, home care,
public health, etc. The pan-provincial institutions listed in Recommendation 5-5 should have
their own authority, which would be accountable directly to MOHLTC, and the government
should explore opportunities to concentrate very specialized intensive care into a few centres
to take advantage of their existing talent and infrastructure strengths.
Recommendation 5-16: Use data and information sharing to better understand and address
the fiscal impacts of chronic and complex conditions and at-risk patients with mental health
and addiction issues (see Recommendations 5-37 to 5-41 for more on managing their care).
Analysis of potential solutions, including more efficient use of the full range of health services
and other agencies should be done in tandem with an assessment of the potential for greater
involvement of the private sector in providing advice on complex case management.
Integration and co-operation between the health, mental health, addiction, social service,
justice and youth protection service sectors is crucial.
Recommendation 5-17: Use information from funding models such as the Health-Based
Allocation Model (HBAM) 62 to examine where services may not be provided equally across
health regions and conduct ongoing evaluations of each Local Health Integration Network’s
progress in managing high-use populations. (See Recommendations 5-50 and 5-73 for more
details on HBAM.)
Optimize the HBAM data set to identify each LHIN’s high-use population on an annual basis,
including their specific demographic, socio-economic, diagnostic and procedural
characteristics. Use this information to better understand and learn from the differences in
treatment practice in each LHIN and apply best practices across the province. Further, use
HBAM data to build specific strategies for co-ordinating health care for each high-use clinical
group, for example: end-of-life care, avoidable complications, and care for those with mental
health and addictions issues.
62 The Health-Based Allocation Model (HBAM) is a tool to allocate funding for health services across communities in the province.
Allocations estimate the demand and costs of these services based on clinical and demographic information such as age, health status,
patient flow and rural geography.
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