Ontario has embarked on a wide-ranging and ambitious reform of its health care system.

The establishment of fourteen new Local Health Integration Networks to plan and fund health care on a regional basis is one important part of this transformation project. LHINs were announced in 2004 and the enacting legislation was introduced in the fall of 2005 and passed in March 2006.

LHINs will eventually control two thirds of Ontario's health budget.

Through the spring and summer of 2006 the LHINs consulted extensively with their communities. They delivered their first Integrated Health Service Plans in the fall of 2006, and have gradually been assuming funding and resource allocation responsibility since April 2007.

The policy goals in the establishment of the LHINs are to:

• provide more equitable access to services;
• enable more effective use of resources;
• create a seamless and responsive continuum of care through the coordination and integration of health care providers, institutions and community agencies.

The Wellesley Institute has identified a number of challenges facing the LHINS as well as the opportunities they provide to respond to community needs and address health disparities.

This page provides access to our Policy Challenge Papers, Backgrounders and presentations on LHINs, links to additional resources on LHINS, as well as commentaries from our blog. Some of these papers were first developed in late 2005 and revised in early 2006 as the legislation was being introduced and the LHINs initiative fleshed out. While the details of some of these papers are now out of date, the issues and analyses are still relevant.

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