Ontario Health agency

What is Ontario Health

Ontario Health was created in 2019 as a Crown Agency to oversee Ontario’s health care delivery and support health care providers to ensure better quality care for Ontarians.

As a single health agency, Ontario Health:

• promotes health service integration to enable coordinated and effective health service delivery
• reinvests savings to support improved patient experience
• centralizes performance measurement and quality improvement, and provides evidence-based standards
• promotes consistent health care delivery across the province and enables responsiveness to provincial direction with the patient at the centre
• ensures a uniform approach to integrating care to improve equitable access to quality care
• improves access to digital and virtual care and advanced data management

Ontario Health is part of the government’s plan to modernize the health care sector to provide convenient access to care for patients, when and where they need it. This includes working with the government to support Ontario Health Teams as they continue to better connect care and improve patient experiences in their local communities. Working with the Ministry of Health (ministry), Ontario Health has made significant progress to advance provincial health care priorities, creating system efficiencies and supporting improved patient outcomes by:

• working with the ministry to plan for, establish and support the implementation of Ontario Health Teams across Ontario
• supporting the staged transition of home care delivery to Ontario Health Teams
• collaborating with the ministry by continuing to implement the ministry’s first Digital First for Health strategy
• continuing to support the Mental Health and Addictions Centre of Excellence to implement the provincial mental health and addiction strategy, Roadmap to Wellness

The organizations that have been moved into Ontario Health to date are:

• Cancer Care Ontario
• Health Quality Ontario
• eHealth Ontario
• Health Shared Services Ontario
• HealthForceOntario Marketing and Recruitment Agency
• Ontario Telemedicine Network
• 14 Local Health Integration Networks (health system planning and funding only)
  • Patient care functions including home and community care and long-term care home placement remain in place under Home and Community Care Support Services. There are no changes to how patients access services and no changes to their contacts or contact information.
• Trillium Gift of Life Network
• CorHealth Ontario

System management and performance

This includes:

• improving the quality of care
• measuring and managing how the system performs
• enabling innovation
• ensuring financial accountability
• providing clinical leadership

Population-based programs and clinical and quality standards

This includes:

• overseeing highly specialized care (for example, cancer, organ donation)
• managing provincial population health programs (for example, cancer screening)
• investigating and supporting new and emerging health services
• developing evidence-based advice for delivering health services and clinical care
• overseeing health care services and information that supports the needs of First Nations, Inuit, Métis and urban Indigenous peoples

Back office support

This includes:

• accountability for an integrated supply chain for health care products and services
• shared information technology resources

System oversight

This includes:

• assessing and planning for local needs
• holding accountability for Ontario Health Teams and Family Health Teams
• support in surge preparedness and response

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To send us your questions and feedback on how we’re improving the public health care system, email connectedcare@ontario.ca.