Several AFHTO member teams were honoured as honour roll applicants for the 2016 Minister's Medals in Health Quality and Safety , announced at today's Health Quality Transformation conference.

AFHTO has named eight innovators as winners of the organization’s annual Bright Lights Awards for their work in making meaningful improvements in patient health, how patients experience their care, and how efficiently healthcare resources are used. The awards recognize individuals for their leadership and for the work being conducted to improve the value of services delivered by primary care teams in Ontario. The winners were selected by a panel of judges from more than 60 nominations.

At this year’s Canadian Pharmacists Conference, Suzanne Singh and Tejal Patel were both awarded Patient Care Achievement Awards. Congratulations to Suzanne and Tejal for their important achievements! Suzanne Singh Honoured with the CPhA Patient Care Achievement Award for Innovation, Suzanne Singh is a pharmacist at the Mount Sinai Academic Family Health Team.

Authors: Judith Belle Brown, PhD, Bridget L. Ryan, PhD, Cathy Thorpe, MA Published in CMAJ Open, click here for the full article.

“Coordinating patient care is a fundamental role of primary care, which is the foundation of Ontario’s complex health system… However, patients do not always move through the system as smoothly as they could.”

Today’s release of Data to Decisions (D2D) 3.0 demonstrates significant progress by family health teams and nurse practitioner-led clinics to advance manageable and meaningful measurement for improved patient care.

There is a compelling association between comprehensive primary care and system efficiency and effectiveness. The lifelong work of the late Barbara Starfield observed that an investment in primary care was associated with improved system quality, equity and efficiency (reduced cost). In British Columbia this efficiency was quantified by Marcus Hollander. The total cost of care was measured for the sickest patients.

On November 25, 2015 the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) released the report Comparison of Family Health Teams to Other Ontario Primary Care Models, 2004/05 to 2011/12. This report compares outcomes of Family Health Team (FHT) patients in relation to other major models of primary care in Ontario over time.

On Thursday, November 12, 2015 the Ontario College of Family Physicians (OCFP) held their 2015 President’s Installation and Awards Ceremony as part of the Family Medicine Forum. Family health teams and their affiliated physicians played a major role in the proceedings, especially Dr. Sarah-Lynn Newberry of Marathon FHT who has been installed as OCFP’s new president. Outgoing president Dr.