Transformation and modernization of health care services: the population invited to comment

Bathurst, November 27, 2015 – Vitalité Health Network has undertaken an extensive exercise to analyze health care service delivery with the goal of better meeting the population’s needs. This initiative will help improve services, bring them closer to the public, and ensure their financial and clinical sustainability.

“The present health care system is not currently tailored to the emergence of chronic illnesses and the aging of the population. Our health care services have been organized around hospitals for the most part” states Vitalité Health Network President and CEO Gilles Lanteigne. “Under the present model, many people find themselves in hospital when they should be receiving care elsewhere. At the same time, others are not receiving necessary services in the community due to lack of access”.

The Network wants to shift toward primary care with major emphasis on ambulatory and community care as well as home care.

“We want to offer alternatives to hospitalization, meaning improved access and increased service delivery in order to prevent or shorten hospitalizations as much as possible. Further, we want to reduce the use of acute care beds, in other words, decrease the number of seniors awaiting placement in a care home, facilitate patient discharges, and provide better post-hospitalization follow-up”, Lanteigne continued.

Mr. Lanteigne explains that, together, the measures taken would create a delivery model for health care services in which hospitals need fewer beds. The Network plans to reinvest half the savings achieved through bed reductions to implement its transformation and modernization plan.

Vitalité Health network staff and members of the public can access a discussion paper with further information on the Network’s evidence-based vision for transformation and modernization by clicking here.

All interested persons are invited to e-mail their suggestions and comments to info [at] vitalitenb.ca or to send them by regular mail to Vitalité Health Network, 275 Main Street, Bathurst, NB E2A 1A9.