Health units should focus on their mandate

I wish to again comment on our Ontario public health system and specifically the public health units.

I attended the Peterborough Public Health board meeting on Feb. 14 and I am concerned they are misdirecting their scarce resources. Their expertise and their mandate is to promote health and prevent disease. The PPH seems preoccupied with building processes and applications to collect, enter, scrub, analyze, and report data. They even have their own IT department!

I made a comment in my letter to the editor on Dec. 21 about more “effective measuring and reporting” but being the construct makes no sense all. If all 36 public health units follow their own initiative then the requirement by the Ministry (MOHLTC) to share information will be impossible to implement.

The Ministry’s Expert Panel on Public Health within an Integrated Health System reported: “The work of public health will be guided by provincial policy and legislation, and supported by province-wide efforts to collect and analyze data on health status.”

Principles guiding the panel’s work include “being part of an integrated health system will create opportunities to enhance capacity and improve efficiency– some services may be delivered more effectively by or through other parts of the system”. IT and statistical application development are specialized skills and surely will be centralized as part of the province-wide Patients First initiative. Adding this to the workload of local staff, as stated in the BoH meeting, is a recipe for failure, as well as added stressed to staff.

Board member Catherine Praamsma voiced her concerns about data collection, analysis and resources required during the presentation “Health Equity at Peterborough Health.”

I would hope the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care will use its own centralized and specialized resources as part of its Strengthening Quality and Accountability Act and Standards for Public Health Programs and Services. Let the experts at the localpublic health units do what they do best, which includes the diverse work of clinical service delivery, education, inspection, surveillance, and policy development.

Dave Schofield Cindy St.