LEXPERT MAGAZINE
|
SEPTEMBER 2016 51
| HEALTH LAW |
another example of how doctors are not go-
ing to be the leaders anymore, but treated
more like employees. is will lead to ad-
ditional legal work as we analyze how this
affects their relationships with patients and
other organizations such as hospitals."
When you suddenly move an entire
operational apparatus into a different cor-
porate entity, some growing pains are in-
evitable, says Shanon Grauer in Toronto, a
partner in the business law group and past
co-chair of the health law group at McCar-
thy Tétrault LLP.
"One of the concerns that has been
voiced is that, until now, the LHINs were
supervisory. With the proposed movement
of CCACs into LHINs, they will now be
operational as well. at's a big change —
to suddenly have thousands of employees
moving over and being responsible for all
the HR components, for example.
— governance is a key issue, says Karima
Kanani, who leads the corporate/commer-
cial practice in the health industry group
at Miller omson LLP in Toronto. "e
government of Saskatchewan issued a re-
lease appointing its special commissioner
to have even fewer health regions, to make
province-wide delivery of health services
more efficient," says Kanani.
"Ontario is also moving towards more
integrated structures — this enables more
consolidated governance and increased ef-
ficiencies in administration and procure-
ment in all those aspects that support the
running of a business.
"All of this drives us to focus on the
bigger picture. We tend to think in very
insular ways — what gets forgotten is that
health care is one component of it."
ese new changes present a growth op-
portunity for organizations that show lead-
"How is the governance of the LHINs
changing to accommodate those asset
transfers and ensure they have enough offi-
cers to discharge their operations?" Grauer
asks. "We are also looking at issues like
decision-making in terms of the account-
ability agreement that LHINs negotiate
with other organizations."
Many factors are at play to ensure that
the process of moving an operation from
one cooperative to another is as seamless
as possible and that the patients don't fall
through the cracks. "I think there's a lot to
keep our eyes on in terms of exactly how
home care will be supported through the
change," says Grauer.
As the health-care sector across the
country moves towards centralization, or
"integration" — from sharing of resources
and staff to full-scale mergers and trans-
fers/amalgamations of health-care entities
"Ontario is moving towards
more integrated structures —
this is enabling consolidated
governance and increasing
efficiencies in administration
and procurement in aspects
that support the running of a
business."
KARIMA KANANI
> MILLER THOMSON LLP
