Kenora Daily Miner and News article published on March 9, 2016. Article in full pasted below. Kenora is home-base to the first memory clinic in Northwestern Ontario. The Sunset Country Family Health Team became the 78th clinic in Ontario and the first in the Northwest when it opened in February 2016 under the guidance of Dr. Linda Lee and her team from the Centre for Family Medicine Family Health Team in Kitchener-Waterloo. Lee established the first primary care memory clinic in 2006. Randy Belair, executive director of the Sunset Country Family Health Team, said the benefits of having a memory clinic in Kenora and the Lake of the Woods region are numerous. “We will increase the potential for improving diagnosis, which will have a significant impact on people’s lives,” said Belair. “Our team will provide team-based management and care throughout transitions, including system navigation.” A primary care memory clinic has a team of caregivers like nurses, social workers, pharmacists, dieticians, occupational therapists and Alzheimer Society team members working together and led by family physicians to better care for and meet the needs of persons with memory difficulties and associated conditions. Lee and her team helped set up the memory clinic for Sunset Country Family Health Team in mid-February and were back in Kenora March 7-9 to train staff on observership and mentorship, the latter of which involves interacting with patients. Once the staff at Sunset Country Family Health Team is fully trained and the program is implemented, they should be able to manage about 90 per cent of “memory loss” cases within the clinic. Lee first became interested in the idea of memory clinics when she took over an elderly practice in the late 1980s where she began to understand the needs of people with memory problems and how difficult giving them proper care was in a regular doctor’s office. “I was touched by the magnitude of suffering these people and their family members go through and very aware of the huge gaps in care for them,” said Lee. “We became a family health team in 2006 and I thought this was my opportunity to try to change the system of care and use the inter-professional health-care providers that were part of the team in the efficient, evidence-based way that would help me offer the kind of care these people need. “We were able to create a model of care that didn’t exist before — a point of access for persons living with dementia and their care partners, between the specialist and the primary care physician, but rooted in the primary care practice setting,” added Lee. “Based on our studies with this model, we can manage up to 90 per cent of the cases without relying on specialist referrals.” This frees up specialists to focus on the most complex cases of memory loss and dementia cases.

Couchiching FHT is integrating its geriatric outreach program into a first of its kind geriatric clinic opening next month in Orillia. Led by local geriatrician Dr. Kevin Young, apart from its occupational therapists, administrator and nurse, the clinic will host Alzheimer Society staff, rehabilitation therapists, a dietitian and other health-care professionals providing seniors-focused programming. With a wait list for geriatric care of nine to 12 months, the clinic should improve timely access to care, reduce senior visits to the emergency department and, due to the co-ordination of care all in the same space, reduce duplication of efforts. Other programs will include the heart-function program, the integrated regional falls program, the Victorian Order of Nurses’ enhanced rehab program for frail seniors and Health Link. Relevant Links:

• “New geriatric clinic coming together as a result of community collaboration”, Orillia Packet and Times, Feb. 17, 2016
• “A community success story”, Orillia Packet and Times, Feb. 18, 2016

Thamesview FHT has partnered with Windsor Regional Hospital to provide support programs for cancer patients and their family and friends within the Chatham area. “Sexuality and Cancer” and “A Life After Cancer Educational Series” are also available via video conference using the Ontario Telemedicine Network (OTN). Cancer patients often have to leave Chatham-Kent to receive advance treatment, which involves a lot of time, travel and expense. Then they’re also recommended to participate in support programs, which may mean even more travel. With Thamesview FHT offering these programs, patients save time as well as money for gas and parking. Also open to the public is a monthly peer support group, facilitated by a cancer survivor and offered through a partnership with the Canadian Cancer Society. To learn more about these programs you can read the original article here.

Guelph Mercury article published on January 27, 2016. Article in full pasted below. Ross Kirckconnell, Guelph Mercury A discussion paper released in December by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care proposes a significant overhaul of the primary care model to deliver “more effective integration of services and greater equity … timely access to primary care, and seamless links between primary care and other services.” The report proposes that each of the province’s 14 Local Health Integration Networks “bring the planning and monitoring of primary care closer to the communities where services are delivered.” This is an important community conversation that is overdue. The Guelph Family Health Team supports an improved model for providing primary care that better serves the health and lifestyle of patients while promoting efficiencies and savings across the system. We should be looking to the organizations that are already successful at doing more or less what the ministry has proposed. Our peers at the Guelph Community Health Centre are a solid example — they have been working on collaborative approaches to community health care for many years. Guelph FHT is another example. We are a non-profit corporation that brings family doctors and registered nurses together with other health-care specialists such as nurse practitioners, pharmacists, dietitians, mental-health counsellors and community agencies for a “wraparound” care team approach to patient wellness. Serving Guelph for 10 years, our work has included leading collaborative, community-led and team-based health-care solutions. The Guelph FHT is already attracting provincial attention as a best-practice model for collaborative and proactive primary care. Currently, the majority of family physicians and about 85 per cent of patients in Guelph participate in the Guelph FHT model. Guelph FHT is a logical choice to assume greater responsibility for co-ordinating primary care in our community. FHTs are well established in Canada, and especially in Guelph, where we are seen as a best-practice model with a proven track record of meeting community objectives. We are in a strong position to continue a leadership role in delivering the best health care to everyone in Guelph. The traditional approach of going to the doctor or emergency department when you need medical attention is evolving to that of a care team that offers patients medical and wellness support for every need in every stage of life, with the goal of keeping patients healthy so they are sick less often. In the FHT model, doctors are the quarterbacks of a full team they regularly interact with, rather than a sole practitioner providing medical care or referrals to external medical specialists or community supports. Guelph FHT patients can also access after-hours clinics and specialized programs such as Diabetes Care Guelph and Health Link, a program run in collaboration with more than a dozen community agencies to identify high-risk patients and create a care plan to address their specific needs in a proactive, personalized manner. The Guelph Health Link initiative, recently recognized as best-in-class with a provincial award from the Association of Family Health Teams of Ontario, is designed to improve complex and vulnerable patients’ well-being while reducing their impact on the health-care system. The effort is leading to faster response time for patients, who may not need to visit their doctor but can be helped by a Nurse Practitioner or other specialists such as a mental-health counsellor. In need of advice from a registered dietitian? There’s someone down the hall. Looking to ensure your pharmacist has a full understanding of your medical situation? No problem — they’re part of the team, too. Interested in some free workshops to learn how to improve your well-being? The Guelph FHT runs several. In addition to faster and more comprehensive access, the FHT model is demonstrating improved efficiencies across the system, and a proactive approach to patient care that is resulting in healthier people who are getting the right care at the right time, visiting the hospital emergency department less, and overall reduce the strain on a burdened health-care system. Careful and thoughtful planning, and significant stakeholder engagement, will be necessary before moving forward, it would be relatively easy to leverage the same person-centred approach to delivering a wider array of health-care services to the entire community. We look forward to participating, to delivering on a strong community imperative to do this right, and to the best possible primary care in Guelph. Ross Kirkconnell is the executive director of the Guelph Family Health Team. Click here to access the article on the Guelph Mercury website.