HIMII 211.02: A Report on Funding Acute Care Facilities in Ontario

This report provides an overview of how acute care facilities are funded in Ontario, Canada, beginning with an explanation of the Canada Health Act and the role of the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (MOHLTC). It discusses the shift from traditional global budgets to funding models that incorporate CMG and CACS methodologies, highlighting the impacts of these case-mix approaches on healthcare funding. The report compares case costing/patient-focused funding with block funding, examining their similarities, differences, and rationales, and expresses a preference for patient-focused funding due to its support for PFF programs that improve patient outcomes. The analysis references various sources to support its claims and provide a comprehensive understanding of the funding landscape for acute care facilities in Ontario.

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Running Head: FUNDIND ACUTE CARE FACILITY
Funding Acute Care Facility in Ontario Province
Name
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Funding of acute care facilities in Ontario
In order to understand the formula through which Ontario province funds acute care
facilities/health authorities, it is important to first look at the health act in Canada. The legislation
was adopted in 1984 and they provide the necessary conditions and criteria that must be followed
in order to receive federal transfer payment. The main conditions include portability,
accessibility and universality among others. The health act deals with how the system will be
funded. According to the legislation, the health care system is funded from the money collected
by the government through taxation. The funds are transferred to the acute care facilities through
the ministry of health and long-term care MOHLTC. This ministry is responsible for deciding
what it does with the 38.7% of tax dollars it receives from the government.
Consequently, the money received given to the acute care facilities is responsible for
dividing these funds into eight main segments of expense operations. Traditionally, the Ontario
government funded the health care sector through global budgets these budgets were based on a
number of factors such as rates of inflation, capital investment decisions in addition to
negotiations and politics. With the increasing number of citizens and patients, the government
resolved to other methods of funding for instance, the government resolved to providing the
provinces with additional funding so as to reduce wait times in the acute priority areas namely,
heart, joint replacement, cancer and cataract surgery.
Impacts of grouping methodologies/case costing on health funding
As denoted by Canada Newswire (2013), the Ontario government uses both CMG and
CACS formula in funding the acute care facilities. The use of these formulas has really brought
great impacts in Ontario. The Ontario government has taken lead in the development and
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implementation of case-mix methodologies by grouping patients into statistical and homogenous
groups based on the collected data. This technique is used to monitor and improve services and
care provided by ministries of health (Mustard, Kalcevich, Steenstra, Smith & Amick 2010).
This has helped in adjusting the use of resource through the understanding of case mix data. On
the contrary, the clinicians and other hear health workers face an increasing difficult challenge of
reducing costs while maintaining and improving the standards of care and access.
The use of this method has indeed helped the Ontario health care facilities understand the
population that is being taken care of thus being in a position to meet individual needs of the
citizens. Ontario also uses the CACS technique to manage the funds given to it and its patients.
This formula is much similar to CMG in that it uses the data obtained from specific groupings
such as emergency visits, ambulatory interventions among others. It deploys the use of anesthetic
techniques and investigative technology to catalyze the calculation of the resource intensity
weights. The clients are placed into homogenous and clinical groups. The data collected via
CACS is then used to support decision-making by the management at the facility level, effective
analysis of ambulatory care service, national and provincial comparison in addition to resource
allocation (Parsons, Niven, Boyd & Stelfox, 2017)
Comparison between cases costing/patient focused funding versus block funding
According to Munce (2009), Patient focused funding refers to any method that is used to
compensate providers for instance the nurses, physicians and hospital. It deploys financial
incentives to enhance the quality and appropriateness in addition to efficiency of care for patient.
On the other hand, block funding refers to a constant amount of money given by the federal
government to a state for specific purposes especially in the field of medicine. The main
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difference between block funding and case costing is that in block funding, the money allocated
by the government is not given to a specific group of individuals but rather the health sector to
manage it. On the contrary, case costing is directed to compensate a specific set of group for
instance the physicians, nurses and the hospital (Eliazae, 2011), the two funding mechanism
relate in the sense that they are both use PFF programs that must be designed to support
improvement (Swaine, 2018)
I do prefer the use of case costing/ patient focused funding since it provides room for the
use of PFF programs that is designed to support and improve the timeliness, health and safety
outcomes of the patients. This formula puts the interests of the patient first thus ensuring the
provision of standard treatment. Furthermore, the PFF model is flexible and is capable of dealing
with any situation that may arise.
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References
Canada Newswire. (2013, April 5). Investing wisely in homecare critical to delivering quality
care and effectively managing the system says SEIU Healthcare in its Ontario pre-budget
submission. Canada
Eliazae, J. (2011). Top 50 Health-Care Facilities. Business News New Jersey, 13(39), 28.
Munce, S. E. P. (2009). Physician utilization among adults with traumatic spinal cord injury in
Ontario: a population-based study. Spinal Cord, 47(6), 470–476.
Mustard, C., Kalcevich, C., Steenstra, I., Smith, P., & Amick, B. (2010). Disability Management
Outcomes in the Ontario Long-Term Care Sector. Journal of Occupational
Rehabilitation, 20(4), 481–488.
Parsons Leigh, J., Niven, D. J., Boyd, J. M., & Stelfox, H. T. (2017). Developing a framework to
guide the de-adoption of low-value clinical practices in acute care medicine: a study
protocol. BMC Health Services Research, 17, 1–9.
Swaine, B. (2018). Post-acute care referral and inpatient rehabilitation admission criteria for
persons with brain injury across two Canadian provinces. Disability &
Rehabilitation, 40(6), 697–704
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