SHA sees both progress and problems on first anniversary of amalgamation

This week marks one year since the amalgamation of 12 Saskatchewan health regions into a single health authority.

It’s a move the province says has proven worthwhile, as the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) is on track to meet a savings target of $9.7 million in its first year.

The amalgamation was described by SHA board chairman Dick Carter as “the most ambitious organization of health-care administration in the history of Saskatchewan” during a news conference Tuesday morning.

“We have achieved many things this year, some of which might seem very basic or elementary,” said SHA CEO Scott Livingstone.

“But this is part of us building a strong foundation to support this entity that we’ve created to support health-care services ... and provide high quality, timely access to services for all residents of our province.”

On Dec. 5, 2017 the SHA was launched, resulting in decision-making and budgeting being managed by one organization instead of 12.

In May 2017 it approved its first budget of $3.8 billion in operating dollars, and over the past year has begun consolidating services.

The Roy Romanow Provincial Laboratory and the Physician Recruitment Agency of Saskatchewan both joined the SHA, changes Livingstone said happened rather quietly but which will result in better “co-ordination of services across the province.”

The past year hasn’t passed without some unexpected challenges, said Livingstone, including the tragic Humboldt Broncos bus crash and even Tuesday’s major power outage.

“We didn’t plan a power outage across the city of Regina. We didn’t plan tragic events throughout the tenure of our organization,” he said. “But we worked through those things and the system showed that it can respond when it needs to respond.”

Another challenge has been the variation between the 12 former health regions, which Livingstone said the SHA underestimated.

“We’ve inherited 14,000 corporate policies and clinical policies,” said Livingstone. “We have 12 of everything and it will be important for us to work closely with our partners, our patients ... and those people that those policies affect to create Sha-based policies.”

He said the SHA is working hard to standardize what it can across the province.

Livingstone said he doesn’t yet know what the total amount in severance paid will be, as they are still working through filling some positions and eliminating others as part of the new structure.

“It’s been one of the big challenges, but also one of the big pieces of accomplishment this year is moving through the new organizational structures,” he said.

The SHA has just hired for director-level positions within the organization, and hopes to have those finalized by the end of the month.

“There are less of those directors today than there were before,” said Livingstone, adding that once those hires are finalized the SHA will look toward eliminating positions that are deemed redundant.

“We’re not done moving through the organization with respect to the changes, with respect to the number of positions.”

While the restructuring has resulted in job loss for some, Livingstone said it has improved representation for others.

“The thing that our organizational structure does is it gives the north the same exact representation it does the rest of the province,” he said.

Through the creation of a physician dyad model, physicians are being placed in executive leadership positions to represent three different areas of the province — Saskatoon and Regina, rural areas in the southeast and southwest, and the north.

Livingstone said the changes have raised the “profile and the voice for the north” in a way that never existed before, giving it equal say in administrative, clinical and structural decisions moving forward.

With one year under its belt, the SHA continues to forge ahead in a process that is far from over.

“Amalgamating ... may take many years and it’s going to be challenging, but we’ve been making progress,” said Livingstone. “I too want to thank our patients and their families for their patience through the first year of transition and also our staff, physicians and volunteers whose commitment has moved us in the right direction.”