premier defends creation of accelerate nova scotia, rejecting criticism of oldfield appointment
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houston said the new office would help sell new innovations to other jurisdictions, with profits being reinvested into nova scotia health care.
ryan taplin
premier tim houston said the accelerate nova scotia agency will help the government profit from the sale of health-care tools built in the province and shared with other jurisdictions, and he defended the choice of karen oldfield to head up the new office.
what accelerate nova scotia will do
following a cabinet meeting thursday, houston said the agency’s purpose is to commercialize nova scotia-built health innovations and promote nova scotia as a hub for health-care innovation.
“with accelerate, we can lead the country from this province,” houston said.
he pointed to the yourhealthns app as one example, saying ontario was interested in having a similar system that, with the new agency, nova scotia could provide.
“ontario . . . will put out a proposal for somebody to build them an app. well, nova scotia should respond to that,” he said.
“nova scotia should be the one delivering that app to ontario. we’ve done it before; we’re highly qualified.”
he also referred to the province’s recent push to expand clinical trial participation, a command centre monitoring bed availability and ai initiatives as examples of potentially profitable innovations already in place that could be part of accelerate’s scope.
“other jurisdictions want that; they’re trying to figure out how we did it,” houston said.
according to houston, profits from accelerate nova scotia would be reinvested into the province’s health-care system.
“any revenues that we can generate off what we have already done will go right back into the health-care system in nova scotia, supporting nova scotians,” he said.
“this is an incredibly positive moment for our province and ultimately our country because we can lead from nova scotia.”
why appoint oldfield with no competition?
when asked by reporters why oldfield was appointed as the agency’s ceo without competition, houston said she was uniquely qualified.
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he said the former health authority ceo was “an incredible nova scotian” and is a “person who cares about this province,” and her experience implementing some of the initiatives he mentioned made her the right pick.
karen oldfield finished her time as nova scotia health ceo on july 1 before moving to her new role as ceo of accelerate nova scotia.
kathy johnson
“karen has been intimately involved in the app, intimately involved in clinical trials, intimately involved in the command centre,” he said, adding that an outside hire would need to take the time to understand the systems the province has put in place while oldfield comes with that knowledge.
houston dismissed the suggestion that the agency was made to create a position for his political ally now that her time with nova scotia health is finished.
“this is the most crucial person to what we’re doing here,” he said. “it’s not creating a job. . . . she could have stayed at the health authority.”
opposition questions process and priorities
ndp leader claudia chender said she wasn’t clear on why the new agency was needed or why the ceo was selected without an open competition.
“i never heard of accelerate nova scotia until last week” she said.
chender said now was not the time for the province to establish new offices, pointing to funding struggles being faced by libraries.
“i think that the fact that we can’t find $350,000 to keep libraries open across our province but we can invent a new department and give essentially that salary to someone who is a close political ally of the premier is raising eyebrows all over our province.”
she called accelerate nova scotia’s creation “another answer to a problem nobody identified,’ adding that if the premier believed oldfield would be the strongest candidate to lead the agency, she should have had to compete for the role.
“if the premier is so sure that karen oldfield is all of the superlatives that he uses about her . . .then prove it,” chender said.
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liberal health critic becky druhan said the province needs to focus on delivering health care to nova scotians before selling it countrywide.
“the reality is nova scotians deserve health care that works before we work on health care that sells, and that’s not happening right now,” druhan said.
“i don’t think government has established what problem they’re trying to solve or why we would need accelerate nova scotia to do that, much less why we need to have karen oldfield in that role.”
houston says accelerate office to be ‘lean, focused’
when talking to reporters about the new agency, houston said accelerate is not meant to be a large bureaucracy that adds strain to the province’s budget. he said it is intended to be a small organization with a staff already involved in the province’s health innovations.
“we’re not building some massive organization there,” houston said.
“this is going to be lean, focused.”
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