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On behalf of Ontario hospitals, the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) has released the third edition of: Ontario Hospitals – Leaders in Efficiency.
This update offers clear evidence of Ontario hospitals’ longstanding efficient operations and highlights the critical need for innovation and system-level planning to ensure a high-quality health care system for the future.
Ontario hospitals are continuing to find new and innovative ways to reduce costs and manage with tight capacity and resources, including:
Providing virtual care, introducing artificial intelligence, and integrating services with community partners
Maximizing the full scope of regulated health care professionals
Further combining administrative leadership and consolidating services across organizations
Continually working to reduce hospital stays and shift more care to outpatient settings
Read the Report
What Efficiency Means
Ontario hospitals have operated under tight funding for decades. Despite constraints, they have managed to provide quality care with provincial per-capita funding levels lower than other provinces. If Ontario funded hospitals at the average rate per capita for all other provinces, it would cost the province an additional $4.4 billion. This ongoing efficiency dividend frees up resources for the province to spend on other health and non-health sector priorities.
Why This Matters Now
Hospitals continually refine their already lean operations, allowing them to maintain services in the face of financial and capacity pressures. In doing so, they are pushing the limits of what current resources and the existing health system configuration can support.
- Since 2016, Ontario's population has grown by 2.3 million people. One in five Ontarians is now over the age of 65. By 2040, chronic illness is expected to affect more than 3 million residents.
- Currently, more patients are waiting in hospitals for long-term care or home care services and emergency department wait times are at historic highs. Many hospitals are facing structural deficits, particularly in rural and northern communities.
While efficiency is one important goal, it should not compromise the quality and accessibility of high-quality care. Hospitals are now at a critical point where further efficiency gains, without investment and system transformation, will mean risking access and quality.
What's Needed
Ontario hospitals remain committed to improvement but a singular focus on efficiency — without system transformation or new investment — poses risks and limitations. Realizing next-level gains will require solving broader system challenges.
Sustained progress will require:
- Better coordination across health sectors, especially in home and community care
- Investment in capacity planning and infrastructure to support future demand
- Support for innovation that can improve productivity and care delivery at scale
Ontario hospitals have delivered exceptional value for decades but maintaining that performance will require system-wide planning and investment.
To explore the data and analysis behind these findings, including where the system is headed next, read the full report.
Read the Report
