ORNGE

1.    What is the link to Crisis Management?

Government health care spending has been under a lot of scrutiny especially since in recent years there was the e-health scandal where procurement practices created a spending scandal in public with consultants billing up to $3000 for a days work. As a result, health care spending continues to be on the radar of all taxpayers in Ontario. In January 2012, the freedom of information Act was enacted which increased transparency. This incident raises additional red flags on the continual poor spending choices in health care and with the freedom of information act now legislated, this will result in further scrutiny of all health care spending. The Ministry of Health and Long Term Care (MOHLTC) will need to evaluate all expenditures and release these documents to the public as most information can be requested by anyone in the general public and must be provided under new this new legislation.

2.    What stage of Crisis Management does the system appear to be at?

The system appears to be at the cusp of an issue towards a risk. As mentioned earlier, there are several other incidents that have happened in the past and given that they are not fully disclosing information now the public will expect MOHLTC to be accountable to the public.
For Mazza and the Board of Directors of ORNGE this issue is definitely a crisis as it is all over the news how much he was being paid and the general lack of accountability ORNGE has had with government expenditure and reporting back spending of tax payer's money. 
For Deb Matthews Health Minister this case is a risk towards crisis. Depending on how the information unfolds, she may be asked to step down or resign in the worse case scenario. For those who rely on this service, this is a risk as services are slower and timeliness is important with emergency care.

3.    How well does the system appear to be handling the situation?

The system appears to be handling the situation moderately. The issue was raised because the Auditor-General and Ministry of Finance both sent audit teams out to ORNGE. The articles have explicitly stated, however, that government has been aware of the troubles at ORNGE for years but did nothing to address the situation. Further, the article continues to discuss and blames that the Liberals helped to cover the growing controversy. In spite of this, they have terminated 18 jobs and shut down the private side of the business in addition to an injury prevention program for youths – J Smarts. There seems to be more and more news on the issues with ORNGE and has the story develops it seems that beyond the spending issues such as the $1.4 Million Chris Mazza was earning as CEO there was also concern with the service that the service is lacking, investigating between 13 cases including 3 deaths as there are longer waits for transport, therefore decreasing the quality of and providing poor patient care.

4.    What level of crisis preparedness does the system appear to have?

      The system appears to have a level 2.5 of a 5 point scale of readiness. Given that there have been earlier scandals with e-health the system is addressing the issue and Deb Matthews has commented on the next steps to unfold. They have sent the Auditor General to further investigate actual expenditures. I suspect the system was prepared that this would be exposed given Deb Matthews received a preliminary report last September. 

5.    What personal reactions/feelings does the description trigger in you?

From a taxpayer standpoint, this definitely raises several concerns, as there already exists a deficit in funding and issue with wait times and quality of care within our system. As such, I will definitely be keeping a closer eye in the news as to how Deb Matthews manages this issue. No doubt with this new legislation, only more poor choices in spending will surface to the public.

From a future health care leader perspective, I am interested to see how much more scrutiny will be placed on the C-level positions and what changes in legislation will take place and what effect, if any, this will have on the recruitment of leaders in the public health care system.

6.    What advice would you offer to those involved?

My main piece of advice would be to report as much information to the public as possible right from the start. The concern is that currently the system has not been transparent enough and provided all the information needed in the public. Further, a proactive approach rather than a reactive one will need to be in place to gain back the trust of tax payers that the government has control over expenditures.


Article Sources:  


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ontario-removes-ceo-and-board-of-ornge-air-ambulance/article2299698/


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ontarios-ornge-air-ambulance-cuts-jobs-and-youth-injury-program/article2313945/


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/explainer-ontarios-air-ambulance-controversy/article2332822/