Year-at-a-Glance Highlights

Over the past year, the Ministry of Health Services has made significant progress in some key goals and priorities for BC's health care system. These include protecting public health, ensuring patients get timely access to appropriate quality care, and planning for a dependable and sustainable health system. We are making progress in every one of these areas.

Maintaining the status quo in BC's health system has not been an option. Over the past decade, health care costs have been rapidly rising and consuming an ever increasing portion of the government's overall budget. With limited resources and greater demands, this trend is not sustainable. Therefore, fundamental changes have to be made.

Making innovative changes and improvements, especially those that challenge long-standing or traditional approaches or methods is not easy. However, new health research and leading journals show us there are new, creative and efficient ways of improving health care and health outcomes for British Columbians. This means making some difficult decisions, and we are now well on our way to re-engineering and redesigning the health system to meet British Columbians' diverse needs in a sustainable way. British Columbians — patients, care providers and the public — are beginning to see positive results from the long-term planning and hard work being undertaken across the health sector.

Significant achievements in 2003/04 include:

Protecting Public Health

• New immunization programs were launched, including vaccinations for preventing meningococcal, pneumococcal and whooping cough diseases, aimed at covering school-age children and people at high risk.
• New measures governing drinking water help to protect the health and safety of British Columbians. The amended Drinking Water Protection Act and regulations came into force on May 16, 2003. The changes establish a comprehensive and coordinated framework for protecting the province's drinking water from source to tap.
• BC agencies effectively managed and coordinated BC's public health response to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). $2.6 million was invested for research to accelerate the development of a vaccine against SARS.
• Prevention measures relating to West Nile Virus are well underway. The ministry is working with the Provincial Health Officer, the BC Centre for Disease Control, health authorities, and municipal governments to plan appropriate mosquito control measures.
• The BC Centre for Disease Control and the Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre are placing British Columbia at the forefront of Canada and the world in health research. The ministry has contributed $15 million to Genome BC, one of five not-for-profit genome centres established to coordinate genomics research in Canada. Genome BC research includes developing ways to track how cells transform into malignancies and become cancerous. This is significant for diagnosing early stage cancers, including lung, breast, prostate, gastro-intestinal, oral, lymphoid and myeloid tumors.
• The government has provided over $24 million to the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research for new programs in BC which continue to develop, attract and retain outstanding health scientists and researchers. This funding supports research in priority areas such as health care re-engineering and innovation.
• Emergency and disaster support services are being strengthened in communities across BC with the addition of 10 new medical support ambulances.
• A new assisted living registrar helps protect the health and safety of seniors and people with disabilities who make assisted living residences their home.

Providing High Quality, Patient-Centred Care

• Supported by an investment of $74 million over four years, BC's health authorities have been implementing a range of initiatives to support more comprehensive, coordinated and accessible primary health care services. Initiatives include: networks linking family physician practices; community health centres; shared care arrangements providing family practices with specialist consultation and expertise; nurse managed care in regions with limited access to physicians; and chronic disease management.
• BC NurseLine, which provides British Columbians with 24-hour health information and advice in over 130 languages, has been expanded to include a pharmacist service that answers medication-related calls from 5pm to 9am daily. Since April 2001, BC NurseLine has helped over 560,000 callers and use of this health resource continues to increase.
• The ministry is helping doctors better manage chronic diseases and improve patient care. Initiatives have focused on improved care for people living with diabetes, congestive heart failure, depression, asthma, arthritis, kidney disease, chronic pulmonary obstructive disease and hypertension. The ministry has also launched the Chronic Disease Management Toolkit for Practitioners, using secure web-based technology to provide tools and information to support optimal chronic disease management.
• New primary health care organizations provide a one-stop source for primary health services by a team of health professionals to best meet patients' needs. The Agassiz Community Health Centre opened in October 2003 with a team of four family physicians, a primary care nurse, and other health professionals.
• A new $29-million expansion of Nanaimo Regional General Hospital to improve access to patient care, maternal programs and surgical services on Central Vancouver Island is under construction.
• New investments of $10 million increased patient access to surgical services, including general surgery, neurosurgery, thoracic and orthopedic surgery in the Interior Health Region.
• The government provided $2 million to the Rick Hansen Man in Motion Foundation to support its leading team of researchers and clinicians plan and research in the spinal cord injury field.
• Renal services have been expanded beyond the major urban centres with new kidney dialysis services in Kelowna, Penticton, Creston, Terrace and Nanaimo.
• A new BC Autism Assessment Network has reduced wait times for diagnosis of autism in children under six years of age.
• New investments in telehealth technology allow patients to access the specialist care they need from BC Children's, Sunny Hill and BC Women's Hospitals without having to travel from their own communities.
• Over 700 new, affordable assisted living units for seniors and people with disabilities have been completed. Assisted living residences provide a care setting and support for those who do not require 24-hour nursing care, yet need help with daily tasks such as housekeeping, bathing and managing medications.
• Waiting time for residential care has been reduced from an average of over one year to an average of close to two months.
• Residents of the northwest who have a mental illness will soon receive care closer to home when the new $2.5 million Seven Sisters Residential Adult Mental Health Facility opens in 2004. The new facility is part of government's commitment to replace outdated institutional care with modern, home-like environments, and to create networks of care and revitalize mental health services across the province.
• A new seven-bed mental health facility opened in Vernon, and more facilities are under development across the province. New facilities in Kelowna, Smithers and Fort St. John will be completed in 2004.
• Over $21 million was invested in new medical equipment, including: new CT scanners for Lion's Gate and Richmond Hospitals; three gamma cameras and a new catheter lab at Royal Columbian Hospital; a new angiographic system at Royal Jubilee Hospital; new radiotrophic tomographic units for Hazelton, Chetwynd, Burns Lake and Vanderhoof; a new mammography unit in White Rock; new anaesthetic machines for Smithers and Vanderhoof; and new patient beds and lifting devices across the Interior Health Region.
• The Jim Pattison Pavilion Tower at Vancouver General Hospital opened in May 2003. The 19-storey inpatient tower houses 459 new beds, along with modern equipment and care facilities.

Managing for Sustainability

• In May 2003, the Fair PharmaCare Program came into effect to modernize the provincial drug insurance plan and make it more equitable, ensuring financial assistance with prescription drug costs and other medical supplies is available to BC families who need it most.
• Government committed $2.5 million to Action Schools! BC. This initiative is designed to help children become more physically active and to provide low-cost resources to educators, parents and community groups to complement current programs. Partners include the Ministry of Community, Aboriginal and Women's Services, the Ministry of Education, the University of British Columbia and the 2010 LegaciesNow Society.
• BC will be graduating more doctors in the future through its expansion of the University of British Columbia Medical School. The expansion will almost double the number of medical school spaces. For the first time, the school will provide training through satellite centres in Victoria and Prince George. The ministry has also established 32 new postgraduate positions — the beginning of the stepped expansion to the postgraduate (residency) medical education program. Over the next decade residencies will expand to keep pace with the MD undergraduate program expansion.
• To ensure the system has enough nurses, government has committed $59 million to BC's Nursing Strategy since 2001. This includes the creation of approximately 2,000 new education spaces for nurses in BC. Government has also funded more than 700 nurses to take refresher, qualifying or English-as-a-second-language courses to allow non-practicing Canadian graduates or internationally educated, non-practicing BC residents to be eligible to return to nursing.
• To ensure maximum value for health care dollars, a public-private partnership is being pursued to build a new Abbotsford Hospital and Cancer Centre to replace the aging Matsqui-Sumas-Abbotsford (MSA) Hospital. The new hospital and cancer centre will provide enhanced programs and services to meet the needs of Fraser Valley residents for the next 30 years.
• The government is working with a private sector partner to develop a new service delivery model for the operations of the Medical Services Plan (MSP) and BC PharmaCare. The goal of this initiative is to improve customer service, promote efficiency, inject capital investment into the existing technology infrastructure and ensure the security and privacy of sensitive health information. The new model will improve client services and access to MSP functions, such as enrolment, family status changes, birth registrations and applications for premium assistance.
• Technology investments are improving efficiency and patient care. For example, the Fraser Health Authority's innovative Picture Archiving and Communication System links diagnostic imaging equipment, such as MRI equipment and ultrasounds, to a network of computers. This network increases efficiency and allows doctors to view results throughout the health authority.