The purpose of this piece is to highlight to the Unionville General Hospital (UGH) board recommendations to for integration options with one or both of the two neighboring hospitals. It is visible that a wide array of integration options could be possible, there has to be outlined the best options for possible adoption that could address the general lack of will by the other parties for a formal (corporate) amalgamation. This lack of will could be due to their not being sure with the model of amalgamation to be adopted. Current SituationIn the wake of growing number of service pressures due to fiscal pressures, population growth, and aging, the IJGH Board of Directors had hoped that the establishment of the multi-year Hospital Accountability Agreement with the CHIN would be significant in solving the year-after-year ambiguity of funding levels and the uncertainty of looming deficits and consequent balancing between service needs and operating costs. This however did not turn out to be the case.
Even though UGH had met the service volumes measured in the accountability agreement, this turned out to have been done at the expense of other “unmeasured” programs and services.Evidently, all three hospitals are suffering the same fate as was confirmed by LHIN. From the meeting of the three Board Chairs, an agreement was struck to support talks by their management teams, pushing for integration to better the hospitals’ service provision to the local community. However, we have to ascertain which integration options with one or both of the two neigh boring hospitals will best suit us and be accepted by the other parties.
Background Within the LHIN environment, there exists three hospitals including Unionville General Hospital (UGH) offering many of the same programs to their communities.The three hospitals in question are about 20 to 30 minutes from each other. In the same context, there has been a historical competition between these three hospitals to open specialty programs in such areas as cardiac care, rehabilitation, geriatrics, and other areas. Unionville General Hospital (UGH) currently experiences a growing number of service pressures due to fiscal pressures, population growth, and aging. These pressures as experienced by UGH cut across these other two players.
These growing pressures require IJGH and the other competitors to consider new approaches and strategies.
