lad-peter posted on June 16, 2011 16:05
On Friday, June 10 Ontario Patient Transfer met industry news with extreme pleasure. It was announced that the Government of Ontario, would work towards legislation to regulate the non-emergency medical transfer industry. This is both welcome and timely news and it affects us all.
As you know, our tier one customers – the hospitals require a level of patient care that emulates the care and consideration that they bestow on their patients – the level of service should be seamless. In our industry, providing that the supplier met the requirements of the Ontario Ambulance Act, service providers were considered “certified” patient movers. Unfortunately the Act covers regulations that concern more of the transportation aspects of the business rather than the care we should provide for our patients and our customers. This can lead to a significant void in service delivery between providers and with hospital customers doing all they can to conserve their operating expenses they are left to make a decision leading to the lowest cost scenario. It was never the hospital’s job to police our industry.
Ontario Patient Transfer has always felt that the care of the patient is first and foremost and recently set about re-engineering and repositioning our company to highlight what it was doing to address the very real concerns of those we serve – safe, compassionate and timely patient transportation. In late 2009 we launched the “OPT Covers Me” campaign which was met by the industry with a resounding increase in business.
This growth required a tremendous outlay of resources as well company-wide changes to create a revised “caring” model of patient transportation that had not been evident in the industry. In short, we created a new self-administered, self-regulated industry standard.
We happily accept the news that the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Transportation will be working together to create legislation resulting in the regulation of our industry. We are pleased to have worked openly with the Ontario Ombudsman with the recent probe into the industry and have offered our full cooperation with the Government of Ontario to advance the care of patients through a better-defined industry standard and service package.
To our staff, it is you that we have to thank for your daily demonstration of commitment and passion to help the people we serve – people that come to us in the most vulnerable time of their lives.
To our customers, we thank you for your patience, understanding and your business as we work to practice what we preach. We have only just started, but together we must work to maintain our ‘gold standard’ of care and transportation for our most cherished asset – the people we serve.
As always we welcome your comments and support,
With kindest regards,
Rick Van Kleef
President