CCACs welcome the opportunity to participate in Ontario's pre-budget consultations

TORONTO, March 22, 2013 /CNW/ - Ontario's 14 Community Care Access Centres (CCACs) are committed to maximizing value for every health-care dollar spent and were pleased to present a pre-budget submission to the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs on Thursday.

"CCACs budget recommendations centre on maximizing investment in home and community care to ensure that people have access to most cost-effective care in the right place, and at the same time addressing capacity in hospitals and long-term care homes for the people who need this level of care," says Dan Burns, CEO, Ontario Association of Community Care Access Cetres (OACCAC).

More care is being provided in the community than ever before. To support this transformation of Ontario's health-care system and ensure our system thrives in supporting the aging population, CCACs are committed to keeping administrative costs low and maximizing efficiency through technology advancements and reducing duplication in partnership with health system partners.

Key budget recommendations

• Maximizing investment in home and community care, so Ontarians have equitable and timely access to the care they need by:
  • Focusing on working together with health-care partners to provide patients with a more seamless and coordinated care experience
  • Growing CCAC base budgets by 4 per cent, as committed in the 2012 Ontario Budget, and target new funding to address growing needs and reduce the historical inequities in funding between CCACs
  • Increasing the stability and predictability of funding to avoid rapid fluctuations in service levels and reduce wait times

• Transforming Ontario's health-care system to meet a broad range of needs in health-care settings across the system by:
  • Continuing to grow community support services and assisted living programs by 4 per cent a year
  • Ensuring long-term care homes have the resources needed to support residents with high care needs
  • Encouraging the redevelopment of older long-term care homes, to ensure the best possible use is made of existing long-term care home capacity

• Collaboration between public and private sectors to find innovative ways of supporting families and other informal caregivers.

Ontario's CCACs are united in their commitment to helping the government find solutions, including more innovative ways to meet the growing demand of an aging population and higher needs patients.

"Dedicated, stable and predictable investment in home and community care is essential not only to creating a balanced budget, but to the creation of a sustainable health-care system for now and for the future," says Burns.

Read the CCAC pre-budget submission:Transforming health care to prepare for our future

About Ontario's CCACs:
Community Care Access Centres (CCACs) connect people across Ontario with quality in‐home and community‐based health care. Caring for more than 600,000 Ontarians annually, we provide information, direct access to qualified care providers and community‐based services to help people come home from hospital or live independently at home.

In 2011-12, CCACs cared for more than 637,000 people, including:

• 517,965 patients receiving home care
• 79,226 children receiving health-care services in their schools
• 98,000 people accessing long-term care homes
• 25,680 patients receiving palliative care at home

Last year, this included:

• 23 million hours of personal support
• 6 million nursing visits
• 1.3 million visits from therapists and other allied health providers
• 2 million interactions with care coordinators

SOURCE: Ontario Association of Community Care Access Centres

Andrea Concil
Communications Specialist, OACCAC
[phone]
andrea.concil@ccac‐ont.ca

or

Georgina White
Director Policy and Research, OACCAC
[phone]
[email protected]

www.oaccac.on.ca