New eHealth Ontario CEO

According to a media release from the Premier’s office, Cynthia Morton has been appointed as the new eHealth Ontario CEO, effectively immediately. Previously, Ms. Morton was a Deputy Minister with the Ontario Ministry of Labour.

David Hallett, currently Associate Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care and eHealth Ontario board member, takes on a new role as Associate Deputy Minister, Pan Am and Parapan Am Games effective September 2, 2014.

Mike

“Shutting down eHealth would be just dumb!” – Minister Deb Matthews

Earlier this week the Ontario Liberal Party hosted an on-line text chat with the Minister of Health and Long Term Care, the Honourable Deb Matthews.  The session was moderated, with the audience posing questions to a facilitator who selected the questions for the minister to answer.

I posed a number of questions related to the use of health IT, the future of eHealth Ontario, and the Minister’s thoughts on LHINs.  Of the various questions that I posed, the moderator selected my question about eHealth Ontario.  I asked the Minister about whether eHealth Ontario would continue to exist under a Liberal government.  Minister Matthews replied:

“Anyone who works in health care knows that we need to continue to transform it unless we want to move to two-tier health care, which Ontario Libs certainly don’t!! A vital part of that transformation is moving forward with eHealth. We’ve now got about half of Ontarians with EHRs – shutting down eHealth would be just dumb!”

As the minister did not directly refer to eHealth Ontario, it is not clear whether she was stating a commitment to the agency or to continued investment in eHealth.  Perhaps “eHealth” was intended as short form of “eHealth Ontario” or maybe she was being purposely vague.  Whatever the case, I am pleased to see the Minister recognize the role that health IT can play in transforming our healthcare system.

Mike

 

 

Changes at Senior Level at Ontario Mininstry of Health and Long Term Care

Back in February I published a blog post about changes at the senior level at the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care.  This post listed the names and positions of Deputy and Assistant Deputy Ministers.  Recently, there has been some further changes to the senior staff.  These changes include:

• Vasanthi Srinivasan replaces Adalsteinn Brown as Assistant Deputy Minister, Health System Strategy Division (Acting). Mr. Brown is now the Assistant Deputy Minister (Acting) – Science and Research Division for the Ministry of Research and Innovation.
• John McKinley, Assistant Deputy Minister, Health System Information Management & Investment Division has left the ministry and is now the VP,Infrastructure and Diagnostic Services, Lakeridge Health.  His former position is currently vacant.
• The position of Assistant Deputy Ministry, Organization Transition, formerly held by Dawn Ogram, no longer appears on the organization chart.
• Diane McArther replaces Helen Stevenson as Assistant Deputy Minister & Executive Officer, Ontario Public Drug Programs Division
• Patricia Li replaces Ruth Hawkins as Assistant Deputy Minister, Direct Services Division.  Ms. Hawkins held this role in an acting capacity and retains her position as Assistant Deputy Minister & Chief Administrative Officer.

Mike

Changes at the MOHLTC

I learned today that on May 20th, David Hallett, Associate Deputy Minister, Ontario Ministry of Health & Long-Term Care sent a memo to all Health System Information Management & Investment branch staff informing them that  John McKinley had “expressed an interest in pursuing new career opportunities in the broader Healthcare Sector”.   According to the memo, Mr. McKinley will take several months to transition out of his current role as ADM, Health System Information Management & Investment and that a search for his sucessor will begin immediately.

Mike

Changes at eHealth Ontario and MOHLTC

I recently heard about several changes among senior staff at eHealth Ontario and Ministry of Health:

• Alice Keung is joing eHealth Ontario as Senior Vice-President, Development and Delivery, replacing Doug Tessier.   Most recently Alice was the CIO and ADM, Health Services I&IT cluster.  Her background includes serving as the CIO for the National Bank of Canada and for Air Canada.  She will begin work at eHealth Ontario on April 26th.
• Lorelle Taylor, who has been working at eHealth Ontario, will take over Alice’s current role as the CIO of the Health Services I&IT Cluster supporting the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care and the Ministry of Health Promotion.

Mike

New eHealth Ontario CEO?

According to a government of Ontario media release:

http://www.news.ontario.ca/mohltc/en/2009/12/ontario-nominates-new-chair-of-ehealth-ontario.html

the term of the current interim president and CEO, Michael Finn, was scheduled to conclude 26 February 2010.  A check of the eHealth Ontario and gov’t Ontario web sites this morning revealed that there were no announcements regarding either an extension of Mr. Finn’s mandate or hiring a new CEO.

Anyone hear anything? Any news on when we can expect an announcement regarding a new CEO?  The silence is deafening.

Mike