The deadline is looming for a group of Chatham-Kent health organizations to get their bid in for a local Ontario Health Team. 
Spearheaded by the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance and 14 other community health agencies, co-chair Lori Marshall says with the full application due October 9th, the CK group is up to the challenge.
“The Ministry has to review 31 of these applications, so they definitely need some time to go through all of that.”
The province will begin conducting site visits later this fall, with the first approved Ontario Health Teams getting the green light early in 2020.
Marshall says the health care community is rallying together to create a system that works for everyone.
“What the Ministry has said is this isn’t a competition, if a community has come together and figured out a way of doing this and the Ministry supports the plan, potentially all 31 could go together and start up from there,” Marshall explains. “We’re not competing with anyone but ourselves and putting our best foot forward and thinking about how we can deliver care differently.”
The Chatham-Kent group was chosen from over 150 submissions to the Ministry of Health earlier this year to move forward with the application process.
Having an Ontario Health Team would allow local health care providers to work more closely together and ease the transition of care from one agency to another.
