Connecting physicians regionally is a powerful way to spark change, to improve the delivery of comprehensive patient services, and to influence health service decision making.
There is power in speaking with a collective voice, and there is an opportunity to strengthen the primary care sector by working better together within the shifting landscape of health care delivery in Ontario.
AFHTO submitted its recommendations to the Ministry of Finance as part of the 2020 Ontario Pre-Budget Consultations in early January. The submission is entitled "It Takes a Team: Interprofessional Primary Care as the Foundation of Health System Transformation."
Our recommendations are the following:
The Premier’s Council on Improving Healthcare and Ending Hallway Medicine released its second interim report on June 25, 2019, entitled "A Healthy Ontario: Building a Sustainable Health Care System."
On April 2 AFHTO presented its submission to the Standing Committee on Social Policy on Bill 74: The People’s Health Care Act, 2019. Our key recommendations are:
AFHTO submitted its recommendations to the Ministry of Finance in February 2018, calling on the government to strengthen primary care so that it can deliver on its commitments outlined in the Patients First Act and ensure all Ontarians receive access to high quality, comprehensive, interprofessional team-based primary care.
Key recommendations include:
“Moving care coordinators from CCACs to LHINs does not remove barriers, it just moves them from one bureaucracy to another. If primary care providers were supported to coordinate care, it would make a significant difference for the health of patients and their experience of care.”
Evidence from around the world, and Ontario, demonstrates that the introduction of primary care teams is providing patients with better care, at the best value. But one of interprofessional primary care’s biggest barriers is to attract and keep skilled providers. The key issue? Inability to offer competitive compensation to the non-physician health professionals and administrative staff who work in our community health centres, family health teams, nurse practitioner-led clinics and aboriginal health access centres.