The Ford Government’s panel, charged with improving health care and ending hallway medicine in Ontario, says about 1,000 patients a day are not receiving attention in proper treatment spaces on any given day.

The report, the first by Doctor Rubin Devlin and 11 senior health care administrators, finds there is much about health care in the province to be proud of but the system is too complicated to navigate.

The report is based on interviews with almost 350 patients.  It concludes people are waiting too long to receive care and too often are receiving care in the wrong place.  It says there needs to be more effective co-ordination at both the system level and at the point-of-care.

It also underlines the problem of people with mental health and addiction issues clogging up emergency rooms when they could get better care from a family doctor or community agency.

Devlin says there is a “pressing need” to integrate care around the patient and across health care providers in every community, pointing to the need to streamline and align system goals with more virtual care and apps and allowing patients more access to their own health data.