Join your peers – 93% of Family Health Teams are AFHTO members!
The Association of Family Health Teams of Ontario (AFHTO) is the only group that advocates on behalf of ALL family health teams:
- to the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care
- to Ontario’s political leaders
- to key agencies such as Health Quality Ontario and OntarioMD
- to other bodies that will impact the future of FHTs such as the Ontario Medical Association and other health provider organizations.
AFHTO is led by, representative of, and accountable to the 173 FHTs who are members, and provides a focal point for these FHTs to share concerns and speak with a common voice.
Why join?
Now more than ever, FHTs need a strong voice and an engaged peer network to address the challenges and changes ahead. Ontario’s Action Plan for Health Care calls for a strengthened role for primary care, as well as “integrating family health care into LHINs”. What does this mean? How will it be implemented? How will FHTs be supported to continue to provide quality care to patients?
With the financial and volunteer support of your peers, in the past year AFHTO has been able to:
- Raise the profile of primary care, and FHTs in particular, at the most senior levels of government. This has been reflected in statements such as “Family Health Teams should become the norm for primary care” in the Drummond Report.
- Assemble the facts on recruitment and retention in primary care, to make the case for greater compensation equity for FHT staff.
- Advocate to the Ministry to resolve issues such as allowing for exemptions to the “employee requirement” in FHT Funding Agreements to enable flexibility in staffing arrangements.
- Develop and promote proposals to give FHTs the support they need to measure and improve performance and to develop their governance capacity.
- Expand the scope of our annual conference – the sole event that brings together all disciplines working in FHTs right across Ontario.
- Build the capacity for FHTs across the province to communicate, collaborate and resolve issues – most recently launching the “FHT ED Collaborative Space” as a pilot to test for further network development.
The impact of our collective action is totally dependent upon the support of your FHT, and that of our peers across Ontario.
AFHTO’s membership year runs from April 1 to March 31.
To join, complete and return the attached Membership Application Form with the applicable fees.
Please direct all comments, questions or concerns to info@afhto.ca or by phone at 647-AFHTO-05 (647-234-8605)
