Review of Oral Health Services in Ontario

Review of Oral Health Services in Ontario Ontario Oral Health Alliance (OOHA) Symposium

April 17, 2015 Lisa Taylor Acting Registrar, CDHO

Why did CDHO commission a review of oral health services in Ontario?

All Ontarians have access to safe, high quality oral health services. (CDHO overall Ends Policy) –

Planning

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Baseline

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Informing decisions

Summary of Findings Strengths of Ontario’s Oral Health System  Despite brevity of public funding for Oral Health in Ontario, the majority of the population has access to services and relatively good oral health status — fortunately, no quality issues identified  Ontario has some good public oral health programs — MOHLTC currently amalgamating them to improve access  Access to oral health services in Ontario compares favourably to rest of Canada and to many jurisdictions outside of Canada

Summary of Findings

(cont’d)

Access to Oral Health Services  23‒24% of Ontarians do not have access, including:  Unemployed, contract and p/t workers and retired seniors without insurance benefits  Children of low-income families  Small, rural and remote communities whose population base does not support a full-time oral health professional  First Nations, Metis, Inuit, homeless, new immigrants and refugees  The indigent  Residents of institutions (e.g. long-term care homes)

Barriers to Access Financial Barriers  98.7% of Ontario’s oral health expenditures funded privately  1.3% publicly funded — lowest value in the country  Not all vulnerable populations are eligible for publicly funded programs

Barriers to Access

(con’t)

Geographic Barriers  Oral health professionals establish in larger urban areas  Lack of awareness of importance of oral health and link to overall health

“For the past several years, policy makers and funders have been concerned about the growing costs of health care in a context of shrinking fiscal resources to meet these needs. As a consequence, Ontario has undertaken health system reform to ensure population needs are met within a sustainable health system. Oral health services have not figured prominently in this agenda or the health policy discussions it has created.�

Final Report and Opportunities Opportunity 1: Create a forum for policy discussion among the stakeholders Opportunity 2: Create a forum for discussion on oral health system research Opportunities 3 & 4: Include oral health in the broader health planning decisions, LHINs, CCACs, CHCs, etc.

Opportunity 5: Stress and document the link between oral health and overall health Opportunity 6: Promote and nurture inter-professional care models