Are you ready to sign the Saskatchewan Health Care System compact ?

As a member of Saskatchewan delegations that visited high performing health systems (like Kaiser Permanente in California, Intermountain Healthcare in Utah and South Central foundation in Alaska), I was struck by the strong sense of common vision or purpose among the health care providers that I had interactions with.  In the last few years I have also been exposed to the concept of compacts, like the ones mentioned on the right side of this blog under the heading: "Compact background".

So I have been thinking about how we can implement these ideas in our health care system where there is not a single employer or organization, but rather a group of independent employers working in a system.

I have created a compact that would represent "The Saskatchewan Health Care System" on one side and any individual, group, practice, department, health region or organization that is a provider of health care in Saskatchewan on the other side.  The compact is inspired by the IHI triple aim and the Health Care Transformation document of the Canadian Medical Association and some of my own thoughts.


The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) believes that new designs can and must be developed to simultaneously accomplish three critical objectives, or what they call the “Triple Aim”:

1. Improve the health of the population;
2. Enhance the patient experience of care (including quality, access, and reliability); and
3. Reduce, or at least control, the per capita cost of care.

The Canadian Medical Association Health Care Transformation Document has been signed by many other Canadian Health Care organizations.

For Canada’s health care system to be sustainable and patient‐focused, the CMA recommends all level of governments show leadership and implement these five pillars for action:

• Building a culture of patient‐centred care; 
• Incentives for enhancing access and improving quality of care;
• Enhancing patient access along the continuum of care;
• Helping providers help patients; and
• Building accountability and responsibility at all levels.

For the transformation plan to succeed, the following key enablers must be in place:

• Leadership at all levels including strong political leadership.
•  Well‐informed Canadians who understand the need for, and characteristics of, a high‐ performing health system.
• Patients, physicians and other providers actively involved in the reform and management of the system.
• A commitment to sustainability with adequate levels of resources to ensure services are in place.
• Health information technology in place to improve service delivery, manage care within and between services, and monitor and evaluate organization and system performance.
• Incentives properly aligned to support a variety of funding and delivery models that can meet system goals.
• Coordinated health human resources planning at the provincial/territorial and national levels.
• A commitment to support continuous quality improvement and evidence‐informed decision‐making at both the policy and clinical level.

I have posted this compact that I put together with the principles above and some of my own thoughts and ask people to join by making a commitment in the comments section below it.

The target would be to get as many Saskatchewan health care providers  to commit by putting their name down in the comment section.  Even if you are not a Saskatchewan Health Care provider, you can show your support by leaving a comment in the Comment section below the compact.  It is available on my blog in the right hand column under the heading: "Pages" and subtitle: "Saskatchewan Health Care System Compact"


I am curious to see where this journey will take us ....