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Patients First: Action Plan for Health Care is the next phase of Ontario's plan for changing and improving Ontario's health system, building on the progress that's been made since 2012 under the original Action Plan for Health Care. It exemplifies the commitment to put people and patients at the centre of the system by focusing on putting patients' needs first.

The first Action Plan for Health Care promised to help build a health care system that was patient-centered. Patients First is the blueprint. It builds on that commitment and sets the framework for the next phase of health care system transformation. This plan is designed to deliver on one clear health promise – to put people and patients first by improving their health care experience and their health outcomes.

This plan focuses on four key objectives

Access: Improve access – providing faster access to the right care.

When people want to take steps to prevent illness, are sick or get injured, they need to be able to get the right kind of help, whether from a family doctor, nurse-practitioner, pharmacist or a number of different care providers. Learn about your health choices:

• Learn more about your health care options and where they are
• No family health care provider? HealthCareConnect can help you find one
• Use MedsCheck for help with your medication
• Health Links

Connect: Connect services – delivering better coordinated and integrated care in the community, closer to home.

The foundation has been laid to enable the home and community care sector to meet the needs of today's population with an enhanced focus on seniors and chronic disease management. Find out more:

• Local Health Integration Networks: promoting and protecting your family's health
• Local Health Integration Networks: your gateway to home care, community and long-term care services
• Supporting seniors: Home, community and residential care services
• Public Health: supporting and protecting the health of Ontarians

Inform: Support people and patients – providing the education, information and transparency they need to make the right decisions about their health.

For Ontarians, health is also about more than the care they receive from providers. It is about living a healthier life, avoiding getting sick and learning about good ways to manage illness when it happens. Creating a culture of health and wellness will support Ontarians in making educated, informed decisions about their care.

Helpful resources and tools

Quit Smoking

• Resources to help you kick the habit
• Understanding the Smoke Free Ontario laws

Active Living, Healthy Weight

• Healthy Kids
• Stand up to diabetes

Invest in Staying Healthy

• Get the flu shot
• What you need to know about HPV
• Strokes can be prevented
• Your blood pressure and you
• Screening for cancer saves lives
• Your mental health matters

Protect: Protect our universal public health care system – making evidence based decisions on value and quality, to sustain the system for generations to come.

Our universal health care system belongs to the people of Ontario. Ontarians fund it and depend on it for their health and the health of their children. With an aging population that will have a growing need for health care services, maintaining a sustainable health care system means controlling costs and targeting funding on preventing illness and improving results for patients. Examples of upcoming improvements :

• A Patient Ombudsman will be appointed to help people who have an unresolved complaint about their care at a hospital, long-term care home or in home care services provided by Local Health Integration Networks.
• Ontario will now require more public reports on how the health system is performing and how patients are being treated, including mental health, wait times, public drug programs and public health.
• A health care system that puts patients first requires the input and participation of patients. We will continue to expand how patients are engaged throughout the health care system.

For more information on Ontario's plan for changing and improving Ontario's health system see the Patients First: Action Plan for Health Care.

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Resources

Video

Watch Minister Dr. Eric Hoskins speak about Patients First: Action Plan for Health Care – 2015

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