Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

It has been found that 67% of Ontario health care costs are accounted for by only 5% of the population. To address this issue, the Ontario government initiated the Health Links program, to improve the coordination of care for complex, high-cost patients and to reduce health system costs. Limited research has been conducted on the impact of this program in Southeastern Ontario since its implementation in January 2013. Furthermore, the evaluations that were conducted did not directly assess the effect of the program for the patients enrolled (enrollees). My research aims to directly assess the more recent effects of this program (until 2016) on enrollees. I will compare health care utilization rates for enrollees 1 year after their admission into Health Links to 1 year before. The use of specific services that I will compare include rates of hospitalization, emergency department use, and hospital readmission. I will assess whether the use of these services decreased, as they were expected to. I will also evaluate whether rates of referrals to services such as specialists, long-term care homes, home care, and community care access have increased, as they were expected to. The results of my research will inform policymakers of the impact of the Health Links program for enrolled patients in Southeastern Ontario. This will be valuable for determining next steps as this new model of healthcare continues to adapt to best fit the needs of complex patients in Ontario.