Acting on your concerns
Primary Care Specialist Collaborative
Just over a year ago approximately 100 colleagues from primary and specialty care gathered for an event entitled “Transforming the Way we Work Together”. Discussion focussed on how we can better communicate and coordinate between our two sectors to enhance shared patient care. A report of some 26 recommendations was produced and a collaborative of six family physicians and six specialists was struck to begin tackling these recommendations.
The collaborative is chaired by one of our FP network co-chairs, Dr. Pauline Pariser, with five other family physicians participating, three from small community practices, one from Mount Sinai Academic Family Health Team and one from Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre. Other members include specialist colleagues representing CAMH, Sinai Health, Women’s College Hospital and University Health Network as well as three patient partners.
To date we have focused on understanding some of the issues that were priorities for primary care providers and specialists: specialist consult notes, impactful referral notes, centralized referral systems, and digital solutions. We have made progress expanding the number of specialists and services onboarding the OCEAN e-referral platform and have been working to incorporate best practices from other jurisdictions like Alberta that have enhanced both access to primary care and capacity for specialty care. We are also forging a partnership with the Ontario College of Family Phyisicans. We are excited to announce that we have received support to hire a research associate to better enable scale and spread of best practices such as the Alberta solution. This research associate will help us inform two new potential referral pathways for managing chronic low back pain and for general neurology.
We will be inviting members of the Mid-West Toronto Family Practice Network to reconvene in early April to present our findings and continue to build on your feedback to improve working relationships and system efficiencies with specialists in our region.