New BC Health org to reduce duplication of services

VICTORIA – The B.C. Ministry of Health announced that it plans to create a new organization that will oversee the purchase and deployment of legal, supply chain, finance and human resources. The organization will support all health authorities, allowing them to focus more on delivering better care for patients.

According to the province, the new organization will be established by spring 2026. Services will gradually transition to the new organization over time, and as details are finalized.

The change is part of an overarching review of healthcare across the province. Over the engagement period of the review, approximately 20,000 healthcare workers attended town halls. More than 15,000 workers completed surveys in support of the review.

“People in every corner of B.C. deserve a healthcare system that keeps pace with their growing and complex needs,” said Josie Osborne (pictured), minister of health. “That’s why we’ve launched this review last March, to hear directly from the people doing the work and to identify how we can make our system more efficient. While that review is being completed, we’re already taking steps to reduce administrative duplication in health authorities so they can focus on what matters most: delivering high-quality care for patients across the province.”

The changes are designed to remove bottlenecks, reduce redundancies, improve supports and create more consistency and coordination throughout the system at a lower cost. It will also encourage innovation and the sharing of ideas that strengthen B.C.’s health system.

By consolidating administrative and corporate services, PHSA will have a clearer mandate, allowing it to focus on the specialized provincewide services that benefit patients, including cancer care, ambulance services and pediatric, maternal and women’s health.

For its part, PHSA provides a limited set of optional shared services to the regional health authorities, but they are not mandatory. As a result, it often leads to duplication when some health authorities do not use them.

Establishing a new dedicated organization for corporate and administrative services and making participation mandatory for all health authorities and the PHSA will save time, money and effort that can instead be redirected to patient care, the ministry said.

The PHSA’s current mandate, according to its website, includes working to share services with other health authorities and being “responsible for regional and provincial support services including supply chain, digital health and information services, lab medicine, revenue services, employee records and benefits, among others.”

The upcoming consolidation will allow the province to leverage economies of scale to secure better pricing and contracts, shifting from five separate processes to a coordinated provincial approach. It also positions the health system to better support front-line services.

The work builds on interim expenditure measures underway to control administrative costs during the review. Since the review launched in March 2025, health authorities have eliminated, closed or left vacant 1,100 positions. Beginning in 2026-27, this is anticipated to save more than $60 million annually that can be redirected to front-line care.