Human Resources Legislative Update
Ontario Introduces New Healthcare Accountability Legislation for Hospitals
Date: May 3, 2010
Furthering an initiative outlined in its 2010 Budget, on Monday May 3, 2010, the Ontario government introduced new legislation outlining new standards of accountability for hospitals. If passed, Bill 46, the Excellent Care for All Act, 2010 would:
- increase the accountability of healthcare providers and executives for patient care by implementing a range of specific measures, including requirements for quality committees with reporting obligations;
- require annual quality improvement plans for public posting;
- link executive compensation to achieving improvements set out in annual quality improvement plans; patient relations processes and surveys to address and survey patient, client and caregiver relations; staff surveys to assess satisfaction with the employment experience and views about the quality of care provided by the health care organization.
Regulations would be filed relating to critical incident reporting, specifically requiring action plans for every critical incident, among other things. Although the Bill targets hospitals specifically, the government has indicated that following an assessment of its impact, the legislation may be extended to other health sectors as well. For a detailed discussion of Bill 46, please see our FTR Now of May 5, 2010.
