2016 Impact Summit

Making Measures Matter: The North Simcoe Health Link Experience (Machan/Koval)  In many jurisdictions, there are efforts underway to more effectively work with the top 5% of health care users for the simple reason that two thirds of all health care expenditures are allocated to this sub population. In Ontario, Health Links accomplishes this primarily through case coordination and navigation, but is unique in using the Canadian Index of Wellbeing as a lens to better understand its patients so that more appropriate and effective approaches could be used to better meet the real needs of its clients, addressing things like poverty, food insecurity or extreme social isolation. By bringing into effect minimal strategies that address the patients real needs there has been a very significant impact in not just improved health, but reduced health care utlization rates and costs.