Health budget gets Board nod

The Board of Sunrise Health Region unanimously supported its 2013-14 Operating Budget at their monthly meeting last Wednesday.

The budget as presented calls for a balanced budget, with revenue of $212,818,799 and expenditures of $210,788,000. That would leave a surplus budget of $2,030,799, but that surplus will go to mortgage and energy payments which are factored outside of operating as per provincial guidelines.

In terms of revenue, the vast majority, 89 per cent comes from Saskatchewan Health, offered Lorelei Stusek, Vice president of Corporate Services with SHR. Seven per cent is generated from client fees, for the most part "long term care residents," she added.

On the expenditures side of the ledger, 77 per cent goes for compensation, wages, with six per cent to infrastructure, and the rest over a number of smaller areas.

New targeted funding in the budget included demographic funding to address pressures resulting from population growth, Diagnostic Imaging - CT services, and colonoscopy volumes, said Stusek.

The budget, as presented did not include any funding for capital funding.

"We still don't have a capital budget," Stusek explained, explaining the Ministry had not yet provided its 2013-14 capital funding allocation.

Stusek said the budget holds with the priorities for 2013-14 by the Region in particulars "providing Better Health, Better Care, Better Value and Better Teams" as well as Provincial Breakthrough Initiatives, Sunrise Core Values, and Sunrise's Strategic Plan.

It is also a budget which focuses on better health by "strengthening our Patient Centered Primary Health Care" and " emergency room waits and our patient flow," offered Stusek.

Stusek said they remained focused on better surgical care as well, with a goal to continue to reduce surgical wait times so that all patients have the option to receive surgery within three months and any invasive cancer patient within three weeks, and ensuring "all patients satisfied with their surgical experience."

The budget was also established with the idea of creating better teams, including to "establish a baseline for physician engagement," said Stusek.

It also established goals of a 10 per cent improvement in employee engagement scores, Reach zero workplace injuries through implementation of a common safety management system with a 25 per cent reduction in 2013-14, she added.

Stusek said they will also work to "implement a region wide capital equipment database for preventative and predictive maintenance program."

By comparison with 2012-13 the budget roll-out completed in June 2012 with a Board approved balance budget. The year ended with a surplus of $2,706,963 of which $2,253,442 was for allocation of required transfers to the Capital Fund for mortgages, energy loan, and reserve funds leaving Sunrise with a general operating surplus of $453,521, explained Stusek.