A draft strategic plan for Prairie North Health Region was discussed at an authority board meeting Oct. 31
The draft 2013-14 Strategic Health System Plan outlines the proposed goals and outcomes of the provincial health care system for the coming year, states a PNHR press release.
The region says plan is more focused than that of 2012-13, as the number of outcomes has been reduced from 18 to eight, and improvement targets reduced from 38 to 19. Key provincial breakthrough initiatives have been reduced from five to thre.
These are to strengthen patient-centered primary health care by improving connectivity, access, and chronic disease management, to ransform the patient experience through sooner, safer, smarter surgical care and to develop a culture of safety with focus on patient and staff safety.
Prairie North's plan, currently in development, will support the provincial plan and carefully align priority projects with provincial breakthrough initiatives, according to the release.
Wage Parity
Maryanne Janssen, general manager of Marshall's Ambulance based in St. Walburg, made a presentation to the board regarding wage parity between private for-profit ambulance operators (such as Marshall's) and public ambulance operators (such as the service in Meadow Lake).
Janssen provided board members with background on which collective agreement clauses apply to private sector employees and which do not. The reimbursement of emergency responders' annual professional licensing fees is one area that is inconsistently applied throughout the province. Janssen asked that Prairie North cover the licensing fees of all contracted ambulance service employees throughout the Region, at an approximate annual cost of $21,000.
In other business, the board approved a request from the RM of Wilton to donate its entire trust fund of $41,559.80 to the STARS Air Ambulance service.
Financial statements to the end of September 2012 show an operating surplus of $991,492.
