Ontario plans to add or expand up to 80 primary care teams, serving 300,000 residents. These teams will include various healthcare professionals such as family doctors, nurses, social workers, and more.

Ontario's Minister of Health, Sylvia Jones, stated that the government will invest CAD 213 million to create and expand these teams. This project is part of Ontario's CAD 1.8 billion healthcare reform plan announced before the provincial election, with the goal of ensuring all Ontario residents can access primary medical services by 2029.

Jones said that the province will begin accepting proposal applications starting April 10 (Thursday). Medical teams will be allocated based on residents' postal codes, with this "automatic matching" system prioritizing communities currently lacking family doctors.

The newly added or expanded medical teams will recruit patients from the waiting list of the "Health Care Connect" program. Currently, Ontario has already approved 78 teams at the beginning of the year, some of which have started operations and exceeded expectations.

"We hope to approve up to 80 teams by this summer. If the progress at the beginning of the year is a reference, it indicates they are ready to start operations immediately and receive patients," Jones said.

These medical teams will be led by family doctors or nurse practitioners and will be equipped with other professionals, such as registered nurses, physician assistants, social workers, and nutritionists.

The team models include Family Health Teams, Community Health Centers, Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinics, and Indigenous Primary Care Organizations.

This plan will also cover 125 postal code areas where medical services are currently most urgently needed; however, the government emphasized that this is just the first step.

Jane Philpott, who previously served as federal health minister and now leads Ontario's "Primary Care Reform Team," pointed out, "We all want to fill these gaps immediately, but it takes time. The government has invested a lot of money, so it must prioritize places with the least resources."

Ontario Medical Association stated that currently 2.5 million Ontario residents do not have family doctors, and this number is expected to increase to 4.4 million in a year. The health minister cited data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information, stating that approximately 90% of Ontario residents already have regular healthcare providers, and this reform aims to address the remaining 10%.

In addition, the provincial government will allocate an additional CAD 22 million to support existing medical teams in coping with rising operational costs; there will also be CAD 37 million invested into the "Ontario Health Teams" project.

The second round of team-building proposal applications is expected to launch in September this year.

Source of information:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ontario-primary-care-teams-300-000-patients-1.7506576

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