Media headlines shouted scandal when a provincial auditor's report on hospital spending on consultants was released a couple of days ago. It was all about waste of precious health care resources and possible collusion over un-tendered contracts and largesse levied on friends of the government. Of course it was all front-page news.
And then this; needless to say buried well back in the printed newspapers and ignored by the electronic media.
"Health-care consultants perform a long-standing and useful role in Ontario, despite accusations of excess spending, the provincial auditor general said Thursday.
Jim McCarter said consultants give hospitals temporary "niche expertise" for specialized projects. "You may be talking about something very sophisticated with respect to your computer system and, even though you have IT people they wouldn't have the technical sophistication," he said. "Or you might want to have a look at how you're running your emergency room and compare it to other hospitals in other jurisdictions around the world." Hospitals also often hire outside help for architectural jobs, candidate searches and specific tasks including training or process improvement, experts say.
link: Auditor defends hospital consultants
Ontario hospitals were right to apologize for some of the excesses, e.g. expenses charged on trips to Singapore with no apparent justification. The pundits and politicians whose over-simplified analysis cried out for a prohibition on consulting also owe an apology.
"But Mr. McCarter doesn't expect the use of consultants to decline after his report and the legislative changes it is prompting--including stricter rules on expenses and procurement, restrictions on lobbyists and new access-to-information requirements by Jan. 1, 2012.
"'I'm not sure that it's going to change that much and I'm not sure that it necessarily should change," he said in an interview. "I wouldn't want the report to be interpreted as saying, 'You shouldn't be using consultants' or that, 'You're using too many consultants.' It's just that when you are using them, they should be used cost effectively.'"
link: Auditor defends hospital consultants
Exactly, but that's not front page news.
