About the Ontario Hospital Association
Since 1924, the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) has served as the voice of the province's 135 public hospitals. The OHA supports its hospital members through advocacy, member engagement and knowledge transfer, labour relations, and data and analytics to help hospitals build a better health system.
Ontario’s Hospitals
Ontario is unique. It is the only Canadian province with an independent, voluntary governance model for hospitals which has remained a cornerstone of system stability and hospital oversight. Ontario’s hospitals are governed by skills-based boards – the current best practice in corporate governance – which receive public funding, provide services to the public, and oversee the hospital’s administration and quality of care. Voluntary skills-based boards also ensure that members are representative of the communities they serve.
Ontario’s hospital sector is extremely diverse. When people think of hospitals, they often think of acute care and emergency departments, but there is a wide range of other hospital types across the province. Each plays a distinct role within their communities – some with a broader, regional mandate. Here is a quick breakdown of Ontario’s hospitals:
17 Acute Academic Hospitals
Ontario’s
Acute Academic Hospitals, including three specialty pediatric hospitals, are
affiliated with a medical school and have a significant teaching and research
mandate. They offer a wide range of inpatient and outpatient services and
highly specialized assessments, diagnostics, procedures and treatments on a
regional and provincial level that may not typically be available in a
community hospital (e.g., PET scans, neurosurgery, specialized pediatric care and
organ transplants).
47 Community Hospitals
Often
characterized as General Hospitals, Community Hospitals range in size and offer
inpatient, outpatient, community and outreach services tailored to the needs of
their local communities. Many are affiliated with medical schools and have a
teaching mandate.
11 Complex Continuing Care (CCC) and Rehabilitation (Rehab) Hospitals
These
hospitals are stand-alone facilities offering specialized programs ranging in
complexity and intensity depending on the medical, clinical and therapeutic
needs of patients. There are also many more hospitals with designated CCC and
Rehab units/programs offering a range of services to people living with either
medically complex conditions or recovering from injury/trauma.
56 Small Hospitals
Typically
located in rural communities, small hospitals are often considered the “focal
point” for the coordination and delivery of a broad range of primary care and
select secondary care services to their communities, such as community lab
services, seniors, housing, assisted living, mental health and addictions
services and even primary care.
5 Mental Health and Addiction Hospitals
These
hospitals are stand-alone facilities designated under the Public Hospital Act
and differ from other hospitals designated as mental health facilities under
the Mental Health Act as they serve as regional and provincial resource for
people across the province.
Challenges and Opportunities
This past year has been particularly complex for hospitals which continue to experience serious capacity pressures caused by the combination of high demand for care due to the province's growing and aging population, health human resources (HHR) shortages, and insufficient capacity in other parts of the system.
Ontario now has over 3,200 more acute and post-acute hospital beds staffed and in operation than it did in 2018. Maintaining and strengthening our collective efforts to ensure that Ontario's hospitals are well positioned to meet the health care needs of Ontario's very rapidly growing and changing population in the time ahead is essential.
Now is the time to reimagine and redesign health-based services in Ontario to meet the future demands that will be placed on them. Hospital leaders will be seeking to leverage innovative technologies and new models of care by tapping into the wealth of scientific, clinical and health policy expertise residing within Ontario's hospitals and research institutes. World-renowned breakthroughs and practices often originate in Ontario's academic health science centres and must be scaled and spread across the hospital system.
The development of a system-wide capacity plan that incorporates health workforce planning will also be essential in addressing long-standing capacity pressures and demographic growth.
The OHA continues to work together with all levels of government, system partners and its members to find solutions to these challenges – both short- and long-term.
This information is based on the most recently available data.
Supporting Our Hospitals: Networks and Committees
To ensure the unique needs of each hospital type are met, the OHA convenes members from across the province through its networks and committees to represent the context, perspectives and issues of our diverse membership.
Building on learnings from the COVID-19 pandemic, the OHA introduced a network model for member engagement that is focused on high-value engagement. These networks are intended to keep members well-informed, encourage active participation in generative discussions and balance a two-way flow of information. Both networks and committees provide members with a forum to connect with one another, while also offering the OHA guidance on issues within their area of focus.
Learn more about our active networks and committees:
