Have you ever wondered how the Ontario health system works? The newly published book ‘Ontario’s health system: Key insights for engaged citizens, professionals and policymakers’ can give you some answers.
This resource is available for purchase on Amazon.ca (paperback copy), or freely available on the McMaster Health Forum Website (individual chapters).
Here are some additional details about the book.
- Part 1 describes the ‘building blocks’ of the system, including who gets to make what decisions (governance arrangements), how money flows through the system (financial arrangements), and what and who make up the system’s infrastructure and workforce (delivery arrangements).
- Part 2 explains how the building blocks are used to provide: 1) care in each of six sectors – home and community care, primary care, specialty care, rehabilitation care, long-term care, and public health; 2) care for four conditions or groupings
of conditions – mental health and addictions, work-related injuries and diseases, cancer, and end of life; 3) care using select treatments – prescription and over-the-counter drugs, complementary and alternative therapies, and dental services; and 4) care for Indigenous peoples. - Part 3 describes recent and planned reforms to the system and assesses how the health system is performing.
- The system is complex, so 66 tables and 25 figures have been included to aid understanding, including 16 ‘at-a-glance’ figures that summarize the policies, programs, places and people that are key to understanding particular types of care.
McMaster Health Forum Fellows 