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Tag: Highlights

  • 2017 Compensation Campaign: Getting to the 2012 Rates

    2017 COMPENSATION CAMPAIGN

    “Investing in Interprofessional Primary Care Teams”

    We continue to call on the Ontario government to support primary health care interprofessional teams by investing an additional $130 million annually to bring our team members to the 2012 recommended wage rates. This figure is in addition to the current investments of $31.7 million annualized, to be shared among more than 7500 FTEs in over 400 organizations. To support this call, AFHTO, AOHC and NPAO are launching a compensation advocacy campaign, targeted at key political decision makers who are currently working on the provincial budget. Our objective? To secure a commitment in the 2017/18 provincial budget for $130 million annualized with implementation plan over 2 years to ensure interprofessional primary care teams can effectively retain and recruit staff.

    But to get there we need your voices NOW!

    We’ve told the government repeatedly you have difficulty recruiting and retaining staff at these low compensation rates. A number of our member FHTs and NPLCs have already sent letters to their MPPs and the Minister expressing their disappointment and anger about the funding amounts they received. Now we need more evidence. Tell your own stories. If you are a Board member or interprofessional health care provider, tell the government how you’ve been impacted by your current salary rate. What you can do:

    What we will do

    • Share your stories in AFHTO Communiques so other FHTs/NPLCs are motivated by your action.
    • Compile them and use it for further action in March to keep the pressure on.
    • Use them to prepare for further meetings or formulate a media strategy if necessary.

    Why this matters For the Ministry to achieve its ambitious health system transformation goals outlined in the Patients First Act, the government needs to focus on strengthening primary care as the foundation. This means supporting teams in their ongoing challenge to recruit and retain qualified healthcare providers who provide exceptional primary care to their patients and communities. Make your voices heard so that on Budget Day we’ll all have cause for celebration. As always, if you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us at any time. Relevant Links

    Engagement in this campaign and use of the tools provided are governed by the policies of each organization and AFHTO recommends before participating in this campaign, these policies are reviewed and discussed with the leadership of your organization as needed.

  • North Perth & STAR FHTs Ready to Start Changing CARE

    On January 18, 2017, The Change Foundation announced their Changing CARE partnerships, the result of a search launched in summer 2016 for Ontario health care delivery or service organizations willing to create new and innovative partnerships with family caregivers to improve their experience in Ontario’s health and community care systems. This was the next phase in their Out of the Shadows and Into the Circle strategic plan, which focused on the importance of improving experiences for patients and family caregivers. North Perth and STAR FHTs are partner organizations in one of the community partnerships that successfully received funding for their Connecting the Dots…Smoothing Transitions for Family Caregivers initiative. Their fellow organizations are Huron Perth Healthcare Alliance, One Care Home and Community Support Services, South West CCAC, and South West LHIN. Located in Huron and Perth counties, this partnership project is focused on addressing the needs of family caregivers through defining and recognizing their role and co-designing systems of care provision and communication that meet caregiver needs. For a full description and to learn more about the Changing CARE partnerships, visit The Change Foundation’s website. Through Changing CARE, The Change Foundation will provide initial funding for each partnership of up to $75,000 for the first four months and then $750,000 to $1,000,000 in each of the next three subsequent years (upon final approval by their Board). Out of 75 proposals submitted for funding only four were chosen. Relevant Links:

  • Mount Forest FHT & partners providing free youth workshops this winter

    Mount Forest Confederate article published January 11, 2017. Article in full pasted below. Mike Wilson, Mount Forest Confederate

    MOUNT FOREST – Three free workshops are being offered at New Growth Family Centre this winter for area youth looking to broaden their skills in a variety of a activities.

    Tonight (Wednesday, Jan. 11) youth can attend Aww, Snap! A beginners’ guide to photography. Lead by Kit Zador of Storm & Sea Photography, youth will learn everything from choosing their gear to editing and post-production. The workshop will also look at lighting, aperature/ISO/shutter speed, shooting RAW versus JPEG, and more.

    On Wednesday, Feb. 1, Hayley Kellett of The Making Box will lead an intro to improv workshop. In this workshop attendees will explore the fundamentals of improvisational theatre. “You will learn to make spontaneous choices, play at the top of your intelligence and how to truly listen, connect and build together in the moment,” states literature for the event. No experience is required.

    Wednesday, March 1 is Writing for Change, where youth can come and learn skills to start or improve their writing. Led by Elise Gordezky, winner of the 2016 National Poetry Slam Competition, attendees will practice new skills, share their work (optional), and have some time for individual writing. They will also discuss ways that their writing can be used for activism and getting involved with the spoken word in their community.

    All three events run from 6-8 p.m., are free of charge, and are open to all youth ages 13 and older.

    The winter workshops are presented by ARCH, Out on the Shelf, and Gender Intersect in collaboration with the Mount Forest Family Health Team.

    New Growth Family Centre is located at 211 Birmingham Street W. in Mount Forest.

    Click here to access the Mount Forest Confederate article. 

  • Niagara-on-the-Lake FHT & partners present intergenerational cooking classes

    Niagara-On-The-Lake Town Crier article published Jan. 11, 2017. Article pasted below

    Four-week session to begin on Jan. 19

    Things are heating up in the Community Centre kitchen as youth and older adults team up for two hours of cooking on Thursday afternoons.

    The “Let’s Cook Together” program, which began last October and will run through March, is a series of intergenerational cooking classes taking place at the Community Centre on Thursdays from 4-6 p.m. The program, delivered free of charge to participants thanks to the support of the Government of Ontario through a Seniors Community Grant and in-kind contributions from the Town of NOTL and the NOTL Family Health Team, is designed to teach new skills to the older adults and youth, and to provide them with the opportunity to prepare and enjoy a delicious meal together.

    Each session is comprised of four interactive classes, with 12 individuals participating. The classes are typically a mix of those with a passion for cooking and those fairly new to the kitchen. The recipes use fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean protein sources to create scrumptious dishes enjoyed by everyone. Participants gain hands-on experience as they prepare and cook the recipes together, and are given the opportunity to take leftovers and a copy of the recipe home.

    The program facilitators include a Masters of Applied Nutrition graduate student from the University of Guelph and the Registered Dietitian from the NOTL Family Health Team.

    The initiative provides the opportunity for participants to meet people in the community while trying something new. The older adults have enjoyed the opportunity to interact with youth by sharing their own skills, recipes, and stories, and the youth have enjoyed the chance to cook and learn from older adults while working together to make delicious meals to enjoy as a group.

    For more information or to register for the upcoming four-week session starting Jan. 19, please contact the NOTL Community Centre at 905-468-4386 or visit www.notl.org.

    Click here to access the Niagara-On-The-Lake Town Crier article.

  • Women’s College Academic FHT physician outlines her ‘6 big ideas’ for Canadian healthcare

    CTVNews.ca article published January 11, 2017. Article in full pasted below. CTVNews.ca Staff A doctor who was praised for her calm defence of universal healthcare when she spoke before a powerful group of U.S. politicians in 2014 has written a new book outlining her vision for improving the quality of Canada’s health care system. Nearly three years ago, Dr. Danielle Martin made international headlines after calmly and succinctly defending universal care when she testified at U.S. Senate sub-committee hearing examining Obamacare. Video of her testimony went viral on YouTube, with more than 1.4 million views. Martin has since been named one of Canada’s most powerful doctors by The Medical Post. With her new book, “Better Now: Six Big Ideas to Improve Health Care for All Canadians,” Martin is on a mission to bolster health care and reduce wait times across the country. The six ideas outlined in Martin’s book are:

    1. Ensure every Canadian has regular access to a family doctor or other primary care provider
    2. Bring prescription drugs under medicare
    3. Reduce unnecessary tests and interventions
    4. Recognize health care delivery to reduce wait times and improve quality
    5. Implement a basic income guarantee to alleviate poverty, which is a major threat to health
    6. Scale up successful local innovations to a national level

    “I’m a family doctor working in the system every day, so I see the challenges and the cracks that my patients experience as they work their way through the system,” Martin said on CTV’s Your Morning Wednesday. “But I think we’ve been stuck in a conversation about, ‘is the system good or is it bad? Is medicare worth preserving or do we just get rid of it?’ “And I think that that has stopped us from really focusing on the conversation we should be having which is, ‘How do we make it better?’” One of Martin’s ideas is ensuring that every Canadian has regular access to a family doctor or other primary care provider. The difficulty in getting a doctor’s appointment in a timely fashion, she said, has spurred the “rise” of the use of walk-in clinics, “where people are getting convenient access to care but not necessarily the kind of relationship-based health care that we know is really the best things for our health.” In addition, she said there must be better communication between family physicians and the rest of the health-care system. “I was in my office yesterday, and I discovered that a patient of mine had been admitted to the hospital who had a heart attack in a hospital just a few blocks from my office, but she had already been discharged and gone home and I had no idea that she had ever been in the hospital,” Martin said. “So we need to improve that communication.” Solution for wait times? Martin said she wants to push back against the presumption that more is always better when it comes to health care. To reduce wait times, Martin suggests in her book that rather than surgeons keeping their own wait list, they should come together to create a shared list. In that scenario, a patient would be referred to a centralized list and then seen by the next available doctor. Martin said a centralized wait list wouldn’t require more money – just a different way of thinking. Creating “team-based” care that involves not only doctors but nurse practitioners, dietitians, physiotherapists and other health-care workers would also help the system because it would improve access to care, reduce wait times and be less costly for the system overall, Martin said. “In fact, sometimes a doctor is not the best person for you to see.” Unnecessary tests and interventions are also clogging up the system. “We know for example, that almost one in three medical imaging procedures, whether it X-ray, MRI, CT (scan), ultrasound contributes no useful information to the management of that person’s case,” Martin said. Everyone should have access to such tests, “but if it’s not going to improve your health, or perhaps even harm you, we shouldn’t be doing it.” Watch the video to learn about Martin’s ideas to bolster Canada’s health-care system. Click here to access the CTVNews.ca article.

  • Timmins FHT ED named North East LHIN Healthy Change Champion

    Timmins Today article published January 5, 2017. Article in full pasted below. TimminsToday Staff NEWS RELEASE NORTH EAST LHIN ************************* The North East Local Health Integration Network (NE LHIN) has named Jennifer McLeod, Executive Director of the Timmins Family Health Team, a Healthy Change Champion. McLeod has worked in many areas of health care for more than three decades, including acute care, long-term care, public health, primary care in remote Northern communities, and most recently, with the Timmins Family Health Team. “Better health care is provided to patients when health agencies work together to deliver quality health services,” says McLeod. “Services are delivered more efficiently, with minimal duplication, and gaps in service are more easily identified and resolved.” McLeod says that more than ever, it’s important for primary care and home and community care to work together closely so that people get the streamlined care they need right across the system, regardless of where they live. “Jennifer has been instrumental in many patient-focused projects in the Timmins area, including the Health Link, Timmins Palliative Resource Team, the North East Specialized Geriatric Centre Regional Systems Steering Committee, and more.  She is renowned for her collaborative approach,” says Louise Paquette, CEO, NE LHIN. “Jennifer’s leadership is exactly what the system needs as we continue to find ways to work together better so Northerners get a positive health care experience as close to where they live as possible.” McLeod’s family moved to Moosonee from Toronto when she was in her teens. She lived there for the next 20 years where she raised her family. Although she moved south to Timmins in 1994, she maintains close ties to family in Moose Factory. McLeod says Timmins has a very collaborative health care team that includes most of the area’s primary care providers and many specialists. She says together they have been able to achieve significant changes in their delivery of health care. “As a Healthy Change Champion, I simply help to guide this process ensuring that we are moving forward. This is an interesting and rewarding role in Timmins as our accomplishments reflect the accumulation of the efforts and commitment of many,” McLeod added. FACTS:

    • Health Links are a model of care across the province that started in 2012 in which several providers in a community – including primary care, hospital, community care – work together to coordinate care plans at the patient level. Health Links are accountable to LHINs. The Timmins Health Link is one of two early adopters in the NE LHIN region and has developed care coordination plans for more than 60 patients with multiple, complex conditions.
    • Health Links locations now include Timmins, Temiskaming, Nipissing-East Parry Sound, North Cochrane, Sault Ste. Marie, and Sudbury.
    • The Timmins Family Health Team provides primary care to approximately 25,000 patients in Timmins across six clinical sites with 31 physicians, five nurse practitioners, and approximately 35 staff.
    • The NE LHIN Healthy Change Champion recognizes people or organizations transforming the health care system so that it becomes more patient/client-focused, integrated, and easier to access. Any Northerner can suggest a Healthy Change Champion. Please tell us in one or two paragraphs why you believe the person or organization deserves this recognition. Send your nomination to engagingwithyou@lhins.on.ca or 555 Oak Street East, Third Floor, North Bay, ON, P1B 8E3.

    Click here to access the Timmins Today article

  • Sharing patient discharge info helps Windsor FHT keep patients out of hospital

    Windsor Star article published January 5, 2017. Article in full pasted below. Brian Cross, Windsor Star Windsor Regional Hospital’s two emergencies are getting fewer patients with sore throats and other minor ailments, an encouraging trend that started once the hospital began sharing patient discharge information with the Windsor Family Health Team. The health team — which provides primary care (family doctoring) to 6,400 patients in Windsor, not including the 10,000 students and staff it serves at St. Clair College — uses this daily information to identify ways it can better serve its patients. For example, when the team finds out a patient is being discharged after a hospital stay, the patient can be contacted for a followup appointment with his doctor. That continuing care translates into better care outside the hospital and fewer readmissions. And when health team patients use the emergency for minor problems, the data can show why they chose the emergency instead of the health team. Since the data sharing began in 2014, the health team has expanded and revamped its after-hour coverage, so urgent cases can be seen the same day or the next day. From 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday to Friday, a health team doctor sees only urgent cases. Since 2013, the health team’s rate of emergency department visits for less severe ailments has dropped from 172.2 per 1,000 patients annually to 110.2, a 36 per cent decline. And its rate of hospital admissions for such conditions as asthma, congestive heart failure, COPD (lung disease) and diabetes has gone from 3.8 per 1,000 to 2.6, a 32 per cent decline.

     

    The numbers add up to hundreds of fewer hospital visits, said Mark Ferrari, the health team’s executive director. The data, he said, “just gives us an idea of who we need to be proactive, to reach out to … to give them followup care.” He noted that when patients are served at the health team instead of the hospital, the result is big cost savings and shorter waits for people who need acute care at the hospital. The health team is focusing on ailments that rank as 4s or 5s on the five-level Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale, in which the most severe cases are rated as 1s and the least severe are 5s. “These are things where you don’t necessarily need to be triaged in a hospital emergency,” said Ferrari. “That’s why we focus on those 4s and 5s because it could be anything. It could be a sore throat, suture removals, back pain, the flu, vomiting — all those things that are considered less urgent.” Up until three years ago, emergency department visits were increasing annually at Windsor Regional. But in the last two years, the number of visits has dropped by 4,000, to 120,000 a year, due solely to the decline in 4s and 5s, said vice-president Ralph Nicoletti. “And certainly the family health team is a factor,” he said, also crediting the addition in recent years of more walk-in clinics in Windsor. Though the drop in 4s and 5s is helpful, he added the hospital continues to see a significant number of patients coming in who are “very, very sick right now.” Nicoletti said the situation is changing toward what the hospital envisions for the future, when a single acute hospital with an emergency department will replace Windsor Regional’s two current locations, and an urgent-care centre located at the former Grace Hospital site will serve the less acute patients. The health team is actually planning to move into the same building once the urgent care centre is built, further reducing the need for its patients to go to the emergency.

    The health team, which pays its doctors a salary, has openings for about 250 more patients and is looking to hire a fifth doctor, which would add up to 1,650 more spaces. Located at 2475 McDougall Ave., it uses a team of medical professionals to manage and prevent disease, and promote good health.

    Click here to access the Windsor Star article 

  • AFHTO Requests a Return to Federal-Provincial-Territorial Health Funding Negotiations

    Toronto, Jan. 6, 2017 – The Association of Family of Health Teams of Ontario (AFHTO) is strongly urging a return to the table between the federal and provincial governments to negotiate a health agreement that will ensure we have a long-term sustainable health system today and for future generations.  The proposed offer by the federal government on December 19th, 2016 of a 3.5% annual increase in the Canada Health Transfer (CHT), plus limited targeted funding over 10 years, did not take into account the growing health care needs, the increasing complexity of our health care system or the funding needed for true system transformation. As a result, AFHTO supports the province in its call for an increase in CHT by a minimum of 5.2%, an evidence-based figure that is supported by the Conference Board of Canada and the Parliamentary Budget Officer. AFHTO is pleased with the targeted priorities identified by both levels of government in the areas of mental health, palliative care and home care, all of which is managed and coordinated in primary care. Primary care, the long-term relationship each person has with their family doctor or nurse practitioner, is key to keeping people healthy and to keeping health system costs in check. 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 and often fall through the cracks of our complex systems. Increasing access to interprofessional team-based primary care by strengthening mental health programming and service delivery and building capacity for more home care services and caregiver support is very much needed – evidence demonstrates that investment in primary care is associated with improved system quality, equity and efficiency (reduced cost). And most importantly, a better health experience for our patients as they become partners in their own health, alongside their providers and health care teams. AFHTO calls for the federal and provincial governments to collaborate on an agreement that will support a patient-focused health care system that will sustain health care for the long term and be accessible and available for all Canadians when they need it. Association of Family Health Teams of Ontario AFHTO is the advocate, network and resource for team-based primary care in Ontario. Primary care teams speed up access to care and offer a wider range of programs and services to promote health and manage chronic disease. They bring together the variety of skills needed to help people stay as healthy as possible. Relevant Links:

  • Hamilton FHT looks to expand lessons of Dundas Hub pilot project across city

    Dundas Star News article published January 4, 2017. Article in full pasted below. Craig Campbell, Dundas Star News

    Dundas Hub creating new model for integration

    The new year is expected to bring a significant transition in the way health care is provided in Hamilton.

    A pilot project by the Hamilton Family Health Team in Dundas is breaking the traditional system of primary care, public health and hospitals — creating a new model of integration for the entire city.

    “Dundas is a toe in the water,” said Laurel Cooke, manager of nursing and complex care for the HFHT. “It will look different in every community.”

    Since 2005, the Ontario government has been creating Family Health Teams to help people get health care in their community. A Family Health Team is made up of different health care workers such as family doctors and nurses, dieticians, psychiatrists, pharmacists, physiotherapists and more.

    The Hamilton Family Health Team is the largest in the province with more than 160 family doctors across the city, and more than 250 other health care workers on the team.

    Together, those health care professionals who have joined the HFHT serve more than half the population of the City of Hamilton.

    In 2015, 14 family doctors in the community of Dundas joined the Hamilton Family Health Team, bringing the total number of Dundas members to 19. But the group discovered that some of those individual practices were too small to accommodate additional staff — and carry out the team model.

    “This is where the hub idea came up,” Cooke told a meeting of the Dundas Community Council in February 2016.

    The Hamilton-wide project opened its first patient services hub in medical office space above a downtown Dundas drugstore.

    “It’s a nice tight geographic centre to try something like this,” Cooke said, earlier this year. “We look at Dundas to try something different … to provide service in a more co-operative way. We’re dreaming it all up. It’s all new. But the timing is right for this.”

    The patient services hub provides a central home for psychiatrists, mental health counsellors, nutritionists and other medical professionals who support 19 Dundas family doctors.

    In the more than 10 months since, the Hamilton Family Team has built new partnerships with the city’s hospitals, the City of Hamilton’s public health department and the Social Planning and Research Council.

    The team has identified health care concerns and needs, as well as existing services, within the community of Dundas.

    An initial process of focus groups, consultations with community leaders and analysis of existing services and population data within Dundas is now leading into a plan to directly consult residents — particularly students at Dundas Valley Secondary School, as youth mental health has been identified as a significant local issue.

    “We want to hear from the residents of Dundas,” Cooke said.

    A wider public engagement process is expected to begin within the first couple of months of the year.

    But the broader goal is learn from the Dundas project about how to improve the health of other Hamilton communities.

    While the work of the past year has taken longer than Cooke and the Hamilton Family Health Team originally expected, she hopes to see the impacts spread across the city starting in 2017.

    “It will be different in each neighbourhood,” Cooke said, last week. “We’re starting to see health care being better integrated — between primary care, public health and hospitals, increasing efficiency and cutting out duplication.”

    Cooke pointed out the Hamilton Family Health Team already has significant resources, and partners, across Hamilton — giving every community the potential to benefit from the pilot project that continues in Dundas.

    She said bridging a historic gap between health and social services across Hamilton by realigning resources and delivering services more efficiently and collaboratively is the end goal.

    The Dundas pilot project has already identified gaps in supports for youth mental health and seniors’ wellness, but also found other structural needs including limitations of existing public transit to support access to local services.

    Click here to access the Dundas Star News article 

    Click here to access an update from The Hamilton Spectator

  • Season’s Greetings from AFHTO | Holiday Hours Inside

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