The Government of Ontario’s recently released Action Plan for Health Care puts a strong emphasis on primary care, placing “Family Health Care at the Centre of the System”. In the last week the final set of reports on Strategic Directions for Strengthening Primary Care in Ontario were also released by the Ministry to participants involved in the five working groups engaged in the process. While these reports have no “formal” status in the Ministry, they may give some insight and ideas to government and stakeholders moving forward on this Action Plan. AFHTO has received the go-ahead to share these reports with members, please click to access:
- Overview of Process and Recommendations
- Summary of Recommendations
- Quality in Primary Care
- Strengthening Primary Care Access
- Increasing Efficiency in the Primary Care Setting
- Improving Accountability in Primary Care
- Strengthening Primary Care Organization and Governance
The Strengthening Primary Care initiative grew out of the McMaster Health Forum’s June 2010 stakeholder dialogue on “Supporting Quality Improvement in Primary Healthcare in Ontario”. It was chaired by Susan Fitzpatrick, Assistant Deputy Minister, Negotiations and Accountability Management Division and overseen by a planning group consisting of the Ontario Medical Association, Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario, Ontario College of Family Physicians and Association of Ontario Health Centres. (PHPG was set up before AFHTO had staff in place and did not have the capacity to participate at that time.) The process involved working groups on Quality, Access, Efficiency, Accountability and Governance. AFHTO participated in 3 of these 5 groups. The synthesis report was developed thereafter. A draft was discussed with participants in the working groups in September. The final product, entitled Strategic Directions for Strengthening Primary Care in Ontario: Overview of the Recommendations of the Primary Healthcare Planning Group states, “it is not meant to be a stand-alone document, rather a high-level summary and synthesis of the recommendations of PHPG’s five Working Group reports and our joint grouping of the strategic directions for strengthening primary care in Ontario under five core themes:
- Integration Supported by Governance
- Patient Centered Approach
- Strategically Aligned Goals and Measures
- Accountability Levers and Incentives
- Continuous Quality Improvement.”