| Summary: | In 2006, Ontario became the last Canadian province to implement health services regionalization with the establishment of Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs). Facing a large health reform agenda to be implemented in a "system" of disconnected health service silos, the Ontario government created the LHINs as a recognition of the need for system change to achieve health reform. As a component of greater provincial health reform goals, the LHINs were specifically designed to integrate health services; however, they may have been implicitly created to shift accountability away from the central government. While some stakeholders supported reform goals of increased health system integration and responsiveness, others opposed the reform stating concern about increased bureaucracy and lack of stakeholder input. Nevertheless, the reform was achieved with the policy framework developed by a government-mandated team and the creation of legislation called the Local Health System Integration Act. To date, no robust evaluations have assessed the causal impact of the LHINs on the integration of the health system in Ontario. The lack of primary care integration and the retention of local health organization boards may have prevented the LHINs from realizing their potential. The decade long experience of the LHINs is a lesson for the Patients First Act enacted in 2016, the next phase of Ontario health care reform involving LHINs as key players.
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