The Excellent Care for All Act

The Excellent Care for All Act was passed by the legislature yesterday and upon Royal Assent will
make health care providers and executives accountable for improving patient care. The
legislation requires health care organizations, starting with hospitals, to:

Develop and make public annual quality improvement plans
Create quality committees to report to each board on quality related issues, including the
public annual quality improvement plan
Link executive compensation to quality plan performance improvements
Implement patient and employee satisfaction surveys and a patient complaints process

As well, the act forces institutions to formally recognize patients:

Section 6 would require that every health care organization have a patient relations process that complies with the regulations and reflects the content of the patient declaration of values for the organization. Health care organizations would also be required to make information about the process available to the public.
Section 7 would require that every health care organization develop a patient declaration of values and make it available to the public, after consulting with the public on a draft version of the declaration. A health care organization would be permitted to amend its declaration after public consultation and would be required to make every amended declaration available to the public.

The legislation also expands the mandate of the Ontario Health Quality Council to recommend
evidence-based guidelines that health care providers should adopt.

Yesterdayâ€™s announcement is part of the governmentâ€™s Open Ontario Plan to provide more access
to health care services while improving quality and accountability for patients.