For many of us 2020 was arguably the worst year we will (hopefully) ever see. The annus horribulus of our lifetimes. But for the Ontario Medical Association (OMA), arguably its worst year was 2016. Reeling from repeated attacks from then Health Minister “Unilateral” Eric Hoskins, the OMA as an organization made a decision to try to play nice by agreeing to a tentative Physicians Services Agreement (tPSA) in an effort to end the war Hoskins started. Unfortunately the deal was substandard, and like everything Hoskins did, was bound to hurt patient care.
Amongst much controversy (which I won’t restate) the tPSA was rejected by physicians. This led to a realization that the OMA needed to change. The organizational structure was archaic, pondering and built on the concept of “politicking” at a large Council meeting of almost 250 people, and passing motions as opposed to developing solutions. A revolutionary change was needed, which required a “disruptor” as leader.
Out of nowhere, in a seemingly vertical career trajectory, came my friend and colleague Dr. Nadia Alam, who wound up becoming the OMA president based on a promise to transform the organization. Her greatest strength was her ability to inspire people that they could be better. Becoming the face of a change agenda, she helped all of us believe that the impossible was possible, and that with hope, and a leap of faith, a better organization could be there for us.
The first step was to revamp the operational side of the organization. Led by CEO Allan O’Dette, the staff became more organized in cross functional teams, and had a clear purpose delivered to them.
These changes were unquestionably helpful, as seen by the strong response to the COVID19 pandemic. I’ve never heard so many members actually say nice things about the OMA staff as I did over that response. All the staff deserve a great deal of credit for how they came together around this issue, which would not have been possible without the operational re-alignment.
But the governance of the OMA was still antiquated. The bylaws said OMA Council governed the OMA (even though this was a direct contravention of the corporations act). Council has 250 well meaning physicians who give up their own personal time to serve the profession. Unfortunately, trying to secure blocks of votes to pass motions, is simply not a modern way to deal with issues.
The OMA Board had 25 physicians, also well intentioned, who gave up much more personal time and tried to represent the profession as a whole, while mindful of the constituencies that elected them. Twenty-five is just too big for an organization that needs to be nimble, and as dedicated as Board members are, it was apparent that some professional Board Directors were needed to guide the Board so that it could do the best for the profession.
Over the past 18 months, the Governance Transformation Task Force 2020 (GT20) worked overtime to make the OMA a much more modern organization. There were a lot of people involved in GT20, from OMA staff, other physicians, and the consultants. They all are extremely deserving of the thanks of the profession, but to name all of them would use up the word allotment of my blog.
However, I need to make a special mention of the GT20 Co-Chairs, Drs. Paul Hacker and Dr. Lisa Salamon. I have had the opportunity to provide a bit of support to Dr. Salamon, and somewhat more to Dr. Hacker (P.S. Yes, General Manager of OHIP all those K005 claims are legitimate). If not for their dedication and focus, this process could have gone off the rails at multiple occasions.
Change is hard. It’s one thing to want change, it’s another to look at proposed changes and realize just how significant they are. Human nature being what it is, many people suddenly had second thoughts or concerns about the transformation at multiple points throughout the consultations and reviews.
But Drs. Hacker and Salamon (and the rest of GT20), stayed the course. They focused on what physicians in Ontario deserve – a leaner, more nimble and strategic organization. An organization where elected leaders come together in a manner that enables them to create positive solutions instead of politicking for votes on motions at a large meeting. An organizational structure that allows for rapid responses when crises inevitably arise.
This past weekend, after many many ups and downs in the process, OMA Council reviewed the proposed changes. As expected, there were lots of well thought out questions about the changes.
However, at the end of the day, one unassailable fact remained. All of the issues that had previously plagued the organization (contracts that paid sub-inflationary increases, not enough progress on relativity, concerns about representation, gender pay gap and much more), would still be around. Yet these were the very things the Council structure had failed to fix.
So the choice for Council was to stick with the old model, or to build a new one. In the end, they followed the advice of someone much smarter than me:
What does this mean for physicians? It means that come May the OMA Board will go from 25 physician members to 8 (plus three non-physician Board members to provide professional guidance). Council has been sunset. In its place, a new model with a Priority and Leadership group (max 125 docs) will exist. The bulk of the policy work and recommendations will be done by Working Groups dedicated to a specific task and which will allow expert members from throughout the profession.
How well will this work? Well it will depend on how much thought members give to the election process. They need to focus on who can represent them best at the various levels. But the reality is that a newer model of representation that is more nimble, strategic and rapidly responsive is finally here for physicians of Ontario. And we all owe a huge vote of thanks to Dr. Alam for starting the change and Drs. Hacker and Salamon for seeing it through.
justanoldcountrydoctor 