Les Vertesi, Executive Director, BC Health Services Purchasing Organization
Wednesday November 28, 2012 Manulife Healthcare Roundtable Series Feature Event: How B.C. Managed to Break Away From Global Budgets for Hospitals
Les Vertesi is a career emergency physician with over 35 years experience in major trauma referral hospitals, and a track record for innovation. Best known as the founder of the Advanced Life Support paramedic ambulance program of the BC Ambulance service (1975-1985), he was also the founding chairman of the Canadian Medical Association’s accreditation committee on accreditation of EMS training. In addition to his specialty certificate in Emergency Medicine, he earned a Master’s Degree in Health Sciences and Clinical Epidemiology in 1989 from UBC where his interest in simulation and modeling began.
In April of 2010 Les was named Executive Director of BC’s Health Services Purchasing Organization (HSPO), a new body created for the express purpose of instituting some of the changes promoted in his book and in the Canadian Senate report. BC thus became the first Canadian province to follow the lead of all other OECD countries and institute financial reforms for its public hospitals that made use of incentives for quality and performance. After only two years, the advantages of the new method of budgeting are becoming widely acknowledged and other Canadian provinces are now looking at bringing in similar changes. Les is frequently asked to represent the BC experience in health financing at various forums.
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