Compact Background

A compact refers to an agreement or pact between two parties.  It is sometimes used between health care providers and the organization that they work for.  It normally contains "gives" and "gets" that both parties agree too.


As an example of one such a compact please see the Virginia Mason Medical Center Physician compact:

Another Canadian example is the Canadian Medical Association Patient Centred Care Charter: 

In Saskatchewan we have many individuals, practices, departments, health regions and organizations.  We have many health care providers and many employers.


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 one mentioned above.  


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.  


What I would like to do is create 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.


I am going to post this compact 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.  


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