Eastern Health (EH) is the most populous of four Regional Health Authorities in Newfoundland and Labrador. In 2017, EH realized the potential impact that healthcare innovation could have on improving patient care, its outcomes as well as provincial economic development. This paper describes EH's innovation journey with "vested contracting," a relatively rare approach in Canada, for its procurement of management services for support activities, such as housekeeping, laundry, patient/resident food services, retail food services and portering. Through individual interviews with EH executives, directors and the successful vendor, this paper describes the system changes needed to accommodate "vested contracting," the burden associated with learning and changing the procurement process and lessons learned.

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