Ontario Health Teams

Ontario Health Teams (OHTs) are made up of providers and organizations including:

• primary care
• hospitals
• home and community care
• mental health and addictions services
• long-term care

They work together to make it easier for patients to move from one provider to another, with one patient record and one care plan shared between providers.

Ontario Health Teams play an important role in mobilizing their partners to respond to local, regional and provincial priorities. They first demonstrated their ability to bring partners together around shared priorities during the COVID-19 pandemic. This role continues to be important to deal with many system challenges across the province. Examples include Alternate Level of Care, and the expected surge in respiratory illness in the fall.

With support from the Ministry of Health and Ontario Health, 12 OHTs have been chosen to accelerate their work to deliver home care in their local communities starting in 2025. Learn more about the initial 12 teams.

Our Role in Supporting Ontario Health Teams

We work with the Ministry of Health and OHTs to:

• improve patient experience
• improve population health outcomes
• achieve better value
• improve front-line provider experience
• advance health equity

We do this through:

• translating policy direction provided by the Ministry of Health into strategic guidance for OHTs, and supporting teams in their implementation efforts
• Regional supports for OHTs that include:
  • coaching
  • help to align and integrate their work with broad health system strategies and planning
  • assistance with partner collaboration
  • issues management and conflict resolution
  • facilitating knowledge translation across teams
• strategic management of accountability agreements with OHTs
• providing oversight for OHTs performance and quality improvement
• coordinating communication and engagement with OHTs

Learn more about the different Ontario Health Teams  across the province.