According to its tracking methodology, the improvement initiatives 3sHealth worked on with health-care system partners in the past year created a positive impact on the lives of 46,515 people. This means that 1.26 million people have been positively impacted by 3sHealth’s work since 2016-17.

“I’m a patient family partner with 3sHealth, eHealth Saskatchewan, and the Saskatchewan Health Authority, so I understand the importance of the health system partners working together for better outcomes,” said Judy McConnell, co-chair of 3sHealth’s Patient Family Partner Council (the group of volunteers that provide input on project work from the perspective of patients). “By measuring the number of lives impacted, you are consciously aware of the effect your work has on our province’s patients, caregivers, and providers. You’re instrumental in improving health care and patient-centered care in this province.”

The work that allowed for this achievement is truly representative of the broad scope of shared services that 3sHealth provides to health-care partners, such as the Saskatchewan Health Authority, Saskatchewan Cancer Agency, eHealth Saskatchewan, and others. Major service lines involved in 2023-24’s flagship improvement projects include Linen Services, Employee Benefit Plans, Provincial Contracting, and Dictation and Transcription. 

How we got there

The work that allowed for this achievement is truly representative of the broad scope of shared services that 3sHealth provides to health-care partners, such as the Saskatchewan Health Authority, Saskatchewan Cancer Agency, eHealth Saskatchewan, and others. Major service lines involved in 2023-24’s flagship improvement projects include Linen Services, Employee Benefit Plans, Provincial Contracting, and Dictation and Transcription. 

Some of the Saskatchewan health-system initiatives that contributed to this total include: 

• An educational campaign to reduce the number of foreign objects mistakenly trapped in care facility linens (more than 3,000 people positively impacted); 
• Ensuring employees receive treatment funding costs directly from the Disability Income Plan trusts administered by 3sHealth instead of requiring plan members use their Extended Health Care Plan coverage before qualifying for treatment funding (455 people positively impacted); 
• Improving process and standards at 16 Community Oncology Program Saskatchewan centres to create cleaner environments, improved availability of appointments and increased treatment visits, and less frustration and safer work processes for employees (more than 2,500 people positively impacted);
• Implementing a new multi-vendor contract that allows for more and faster Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation procedures to be done, reducing the waitlist for this life-saving procedure from four to six months to two (eight people positively impacted); and
• Making clinical documents for Saskatchewan Cancer Agency patients available on MySaskHealthRecord, helping them be better informed and more able to actively participate in their care (over 40,000 lives positively impacted).

You can learn more about the foreign objects in linen campaign by clicking here. Stay tuned in the weeks ahead for more detailed stories on these projects and the difference they are making on Saskatchewan’s health-care system. 

Measuring up

This calculation is part of 3sHealth’s on-going effort to quantify the impact that shared services have on health care. This journey began in 2016-17, when 3sHealth set a goal of positively impacting 1.2 million lives by 2025.

For an improvement to be counted in 3sHealth’s “lives positively impacted” total, it needs to make a demonstrated improvement to quality of care in terms of safety, timeliness, effectiveness, efficiency, equity or reliability, or patient-centredness. 3sHealth then calculates the number of patient or health-care provider lives improved using health system data.

3sHealth achieved the goal of 1.2 million lives positively impacted in 2022-23. The 46,515 lives tallied in 2023-23 increases the total to 1.26 million patient and health-care provider lives positively impacted in Saskatchewan.

For 3sHealth CEO Mark Anderson, that number is a validation of the dedication and hard work of 3sHealth and the partner agencies that work side-by-side every day to improve health care in Saskatchewan.

“We all have the privilege to get to work every day to make a difference for our communities, our friends, and family members who rely on this health-care sector. Each of us plays a role in some way, shape, or form to do that. It’s a privilege and a responsibility that we get to do this. We get to make a difference. That excites me and keeps me coming back to do more each and every day.”