3. Organizing primary care to advance Ontario Health Teams
- Release date:
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This webinar will be available for a limited time after the conference- don't miss it on Wednesday October 25th during the conference!
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- Style: Presentation (information provided to audience, with opportunity for audience to ask question)
- Focus: Research/Policy (e.g. Presentation of research findings, analysis of policy issues and options)
- Target Audience: Leadership (ED, clinical lead, board chair, board member, etc.) , Clinical providers
Learning Objectives
Participants will:
- Understand how the Frontenac, Lennox & Addington Ontario Health Team has placed primary care at the centre of their regional integrated health system
- Learn how all interventions to improve care for priority populations can be embedded within a primary care system
Summary/Abstract
In 2019, Ontario introduced Ontario Health Teams (OHTs), a provincial model of integrated care focused on local populations, to establish a seamless and coordinated system across the continuum. Each OHT sets priorities based on their own needs. The Frontenac, Lennox & Addington Ontario Health Team (FLA OHT) received official designation in November 2020. They are a mid-sized OHT with responsibility of approximately 220,000 patients who live within the urban-rural geographical area of Kingston, Napanee, Gananoque and surrounding communities of Leeds and the Thousand Islands. This region has an older population (1/4 are above the age of 53) and access to primary care is a critical issue with over 20,000 individuals having no primary care physician. At the core of the FLA OHT is the health home, informed by the patient-centred medical home (PCMH). The term health home was created by the citizens of the FLA OHT, as a commitment to focusing on health versus illness and people versus patients. This presentation will discuss how the FLA OHT has identified priority populations and developed coordinated care interventions for: aging well at home, addictions and mental health, palliative care, coordinated discharge, and attachment to primary care. All interventions involve an embedded care coordinator within primary care clinics to connect identified patients to health and social services. The FLA OHT has further prioritized increasing access to primary care as roughly 20,000 people in the region (10% of the population) do not have access to a primary care provider.
Presenters
- Morgan Slater, Research Scientist, Queen's University
- Catherine Donnelly, Associate Professor, Queen's University
- Kim Morrison, Executive Lead, Frontenac, Lennox & Addington Ontario Health Team