The Independent Health Facilities Act.

The Independent Health Facilities Act represents an attempt by the Ontario Government to control the unplanned proliferation of health clinics in the community offering specialized services often seen as competing with public hospitals, and to provide mechanisms to ensure that standards and quality care are maintained in these clinics. Although the Act was originally aimed at about 25 ambulatory surgi-centers performing such procedures as cataract surgery and abortions, amendments have broadened the Act's scope to include most clinics offering such diagnostic services as x-ray and ultra sound. The legislation was opposed by some medical specialties and proved very controversial. Other provinces have looked to this legislation as a means of controlling health care costs by reducing reliance on hospitals for certain kinds of procedures and by moving from fee for service to various alternative funding mechanisms for those procedures provided by out-of-community clinics as approved and licensed in a place and manner decided upon by government. The papers in this issue of the journal reflect a conference sponsored by the Canadian Institute of Law and Medicine to examine this legislation one year after it came into force. The comments of government, physicians, lawyers and others most directly affected by this new statute are set out in a selected number of presentations.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)