Milestones Newsletter | Issue 9, Winter 2025

Partnerships and relationship building are essential to the function of Ontario’s six regional maternal-child health networks (“regional networks”).
The regional networks work collaboratively with others to meet the province’s evolving healthcare system needs by supporting coordination within their regions and advancing the provision of equitable care. To achieve their goals, they engage with a diverse range of partners – from provincial entities to healthcare providers to patients and families in the community.
Part of PCMCH’s informational series on the regional networks, this article identifies some of the key partners engaged by the regional networks to improve perinatal and paediatric care in Ontario.
Relationships with provincial entities
The regional networks align their activities and reporting relationship with PCMCH, the Ministry of Health and their respective Ontario Health regions. The relationship with Ontario Health allows the regional networks to drive synergies to advance regional and provincial priorities and address gaps in the healthcare system.
Mackenzie Heath, Program Manager for the Toronto Region Maternal Child Health Network (TRMCHN), describes her network’s relationship with Ontario Health:
“We work closely with Ontario Health Toronto region, and we keep each other well informed to achieve common objectives. For example, we’re currently working with Ontario Health Toronto to establish a system-monitoring scorecard to help us better understand how the healthcare system is performing in our region.”
Connecting and coordinating hospitals and healthcare providers
The regional networks pursue relationships with individuals and organizations that support perinatal and paediatric care in Ontario, including healthcare providers and hospitals. Through these interactions, they help avoid duplicating work and processes, promote collaboration, identify opportunities, and advance knowledge.
“As a network, it’s really important for us to provide educational support for hospital staff to help them maintain their skills, whether it’s through sharing resources through our website and newsletter, facilitating communities of practices among educators or developing education modules or simulation workshops,” said Crystal Lawrence, Regional Manager for the Northern Maternal Child Network (NMCN). “This is particularly important in a vast and sparsely populated region like Northern Ontario, where community hospitals are located 1.5 to 6.5 hours away from higher-care facilities resulting in staff often taking on responsibilities typically associated with higher-level care facilities due to transport barriers or the need for timely care.”
Lawrence adds that the NMCN recently expanded their team to focus on creating and delivering content to support northern organizations.
“We meet with hospital managers regularly to understand their needs and help coordinate the sharing of implementation plans and resources, such as those on RSV prevention,” said Heath. “We’re also looking to strengthen relationships and do more work with groups outside of the hospitals, including with public health units, midwifery practices and birthing centres.”
Seeking community voices
The regional networks value the perspectives of patients, family and community members. This may include the direct involvement of lived experience advisors in activities or the leveraging of existing structures at partner organizations. Advancing equity, diversity and inclusion is an important component of this work.
“Seeking community perspectives is a top priority for us,” said Lawrence of the NMCN’s outreach efforts. “This means ensuring that Indigenous organizations and voices are represented in our network’s governance structure. It also means exploring ways to work with communities and healthcare providers to bridge any gaps in the continuum of care.”
Community perspectives help inform the regional networks’ decision making. This, combined with their collaboration with provincial entities, healthcare organizations and healthcare providers, leads to improvements in perinatal and paediatric care for Ontarians.
Are you interested in learning more about Ontario’s regional maternal-child health networks? Visit the PCMCH website for more information, including links to the different networks. Also, stay tuned for more articles on the regional networks in upcoming editions of Milestones.