The Ontario government has approved an application for an Ontario Health Team for Windsor-Essex.
Designed to replace the Local Health Integration Network (LIHN), the Ontario Health Team would be fiscally responsible for health care services and providers in a given area, while also coordinating healthcare services under one umbrella.
The new Windsor Essex Ontario Health Team is composed of over 45 local health care programs and service providers, including hospitals, primary care and community support providers, mental health and addictions agencies, long-term care and other social service providers.
Claudia den Boer is the co-chair of the Windsor-Essex Ontario Health Team Steering Committee.
She says this was years in the making.
"It was really our Windsor-Essex community coming together and saying, we have sufficient numbers and geography that it makes sense for us to have our own that would focus on Windsor-Essex."
Den Boer says this is great news for the community.
"We've got a great number of organizations that have said yes, we're committed to working on providing more integrated care for our community and finding new ways to make the system more seamless."
She says the COVID-19 pandemic helped underline the need for a health team.
"None of us really wanted it, but it certainly provided a crisis that we rallied around and there were some tremendous outcomes of members coming together. Now we're going to actually leverage some of those connections that came about."
The province will have a total of 51 Ontario Health Teams, which cover 95 per cent of the province's population.
The province announced plans in February 2019 to phase out the LIHN's in favour of the Ontario Health Teams.
The province will also provide up to $1.1 million to help the Windsor Essex Ontario Health Team to seamlessly integrate health care services for patients and support the region's continued response to COVID-19.