A partnership model for children with complex medical conditions: The Champlain Complex Care Programme in Canada

Introduction

Clinical and technological advances have allowed patients, including children and young people, to live longer with chronic illnesses. An almost unavoidable consequence is that some infants who would previously not have survived now live with significant physical and neurologic disorders.

According to the Provincial Council for Maternal and Child Health, in 2012 3,700 or 0.14% of Ontario children accounted for 50% of overall annual in-patient expenditures for all children. These patients are considered to represent the most technologically and medically complex cases in overall terms.

This case study shows how the Champlain region of eastern Ontario in Canada developed an innovative pilot project that has evolved into a partnership model to reduce the average cost of delivering health services to such patients, while enhancing their overall quality of life, by providing the right care, at the right time, in the right place, by the right care provider.