These targets are positively impacting 1.2 million lives and saving the Saskatchewan health-care system $1 billion dollars by 2025. 

“In 2019-20, 3sHealth met its yearly goals when it worked with its health-system partners to positively impact 95,350 lives and save $8.7 million in net new savings for the health-care system,” says 3sHealth CEO Mark Anderson. “That is a total of 780,826 lives impacted and $421.6 million dollars saved since 2012.”

Target 1: Positively impact 1.2 million lives

3sHealth is proud to report that it exceeded its 2019-20 target of positively impacting 90,000 lives. Shared services initiatives positively impacted 95,350 lives that year. 

Some of these initiatives include: 

• The rate that SUN and General plan members pay for their disability income plan decreased, impacting 15,448 lives positively;
• 4,419 residents at long-term care facilities across Saskatchewan benefited from bigger, softer, gentler, and higher-quality facecloths that the health system introduced at no additional cost; and 
• 69,833 patients benefited when 3sHealth, eHealth Saskatchewan, and the Saskatchewan Health Authority created the ability to add transcribed medical reports from Saskatchewan health-care facilities into the electronic health record viewer known as the eHR Viewer. 

To date, the work 3sHealth and its health-care system partners have done has positively impacted the lives of 780,826 Saskatchewan patients.

Target 2: Save $1 billion

Improvement initiatives and close collaboration with partners helped 3sHealth generate significant cost savings for the health system, exceeding its $8 million 2019-20 target. 

Efforts from provincial procurement initiatives, contract rebates, provincial linen services, and dictation and transcription services not only strengthened the quality of products and services, but also saved $8.7 million in 2019-20.

Savings are largely the result of: 

• Provincial contracting, which is a collaborative process with the health system that has reduced the cost of medical surgical supplies, drugs, and services while improving or maintaining quality and safety for patients, families, and staff. Running competitive processes and leveraging volume consolidation within the Saskatchewan Health Authority are some key factors in obtaining the best value for the province, including financial savings. Take cardiac devices as an example of this work providing better access, flexibility in device selection, and opportunities for greater health system savings;
• Implementation of the provincial linen service in 2015, which has produced health system savings of $50 million in capital cost avoidance and estimated operational savings of $4.18 million annually. The provincial linen service consistently implements improvements for patients; and
• Operational savings achieved through the provincial implementation of dictation and transcription services reached a “break-even” point in July 2018, at which point initial project investment had been fully recovered. The health system redirected all subsequent savings to 3sHealth’s partners and/or to the deployment of self-edit dictation software. Swift Current physicians are using this innovative technology to speed up patient care reporting. 

3sHealth’s shared services initiatives, which began in 2012, have resulted in savings of $421.6 million as of March 31, 2020. 

These efforts not only benefit patients, but they also provide better value for Saskatchewan taxpayers. 

A year in review and looking to the future

3sHealth prides itself on fostering a strong culture of continuous improvement, innovation, and teamwork amongst employees and together with health system partners. The organization’s vision is to provide province-wide services that better support a high-performing and sustainable patient- and family-centred health system. 

Read the full 2019-20 3sHealth Annual Report here.