History of ISAN (1996 to 2009)

London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) was created following the merger of University Hospital and Victoria Hospital in 1995. In the midst of the provincial hospital consolidations and the local hospital reconfiguration, strategic alliance opportunities presented themselves to LHSC’s executive management team. At this time a small group called Patient Networks and Alliances, was born.

At the time of its inception, the Patient Networks and Alliances team focused on the following:

• Patient-centred care, education and research
• Working with other partners to be a "model for the province and all of Canada in integration”
• The development of trusting, mutually respectful, 'equal' partnerships

Regional providers wanted to access the expertise and resources of LHSC. In addition, some communities wanted to work with LHSC to provide a more comprehensive scope of local services, in order to keep/return patients home rather than going to or staying in London. This led to a number of clinical integration opportunities between LHSC and community providers.

The Patient Networks and Alliances team strove to:

• achieve a common standard of care across the region
• address management of disease states / patient populations across the continuum
• fill in the gaps in patient care
• package and share knowledge/skills with the community
• maximize the availability of resources; integrated information and technologies, and 'win-win' public or public-private partnerships

As part of the on-going restructure and integration of health care services within Southwestern Ontario, the decision was made to make Patient Networks and Alliances an integrated portfolio of LHSC and St. Joseph's in 1999.  With this change in sponsorship, the name of the portfolio was changed to Integrated Strategic Alliances & Networks or ISAN.

Since that time ISAN has focused its attention on a variety of regional projects and initiatives. In the early 2000’s the focus was on opportunities for repatriation, especially primary and secondary level care patients who lived outside of the immediate community catchment area of the two hospitals.  In 2003, with a change in the structure of the senior management team at LHSC and St. Joseph’s, ISAN became part of the responsibility of the CIO and Integrated Vice President responsible for Health Information Management.  As a result of this change, ISAN became involved in a number of enabling technology projects that had a regional focus. 

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