The role of physicians and nurse practitioners
As key providers within the healthcare system, we need physician and nurse practitioner partners to reach our goals. We aim to build a trusting relationship between the Ottawa Health Team - Équipe Santé Ottawa (OHT - ÉSO) and physicians/nurse practitioners in our community and create an open and effective way to get the information they need from, provide input to and communicate with the OHT-ÉSO. Our leadership group of Primary Care Physicians and Nurse Practitioners provides representation at the OHT-ÉSO Collaborative Leadership Group and in project action teams. They are developing a simple, easy-to-access approach that enables providers in our community to stay informed and share input. The OHT - ÉSO aims to support our community physicians and nurse practitioners by making affiliation with us a clear and worthwhile endeavour.
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Why the Ottawa Health Team - Équipe Santé Ottawa?
While we have a health system of world-class care providers and cutting-edge institutions, the system itself remains a disconnected patchwork with little integration between the parts and other systems that impact well-being. This fragmentation leads to frustrating and complex journeys for clients and burdensome system navigation and administrative headaches for the physicians and nurse practitioners trying to ensure their clients have access to the services they need. Primary health care is the foundation of the health system, and improving the provider experience is one of the Quadruple Aims for health system reform. The contributions of physician and nurse practitioner partners are vital to our system redesign. As one of the approved Ontario Health Teams, the long-term goal of the OHT - ÉSO is to answer this call and begin working collaboratively across partner organizations to re-organize health and community services within the city and at a neighbourhood level. At maturity, we aim to provide a full and coordinated continuum of care and support where patients can count on a seamless and accessible experience. Physicians and nurse practitioners can focus on spending their time and resources delivering quality care to clients.
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Where are we now?
The kind of transformation we are engaged in will not happen overnight. Reaching maturity will take several years, but we are committed to working as fast as we can and learning as we go. We have chosen two initial population groups as priorities for our work: Adults with moderate to complex mental health and addictions issues and frail older adults (55+ years of age). We hope to make a significant difference in the lives of these population groups while closing gaps and reducing their impact on the system. While working on system re-design to support these populations, the Primary Care Partner Table is also working to address pain points for primary care providers, including focus on smoother transitions into and out of the Ottawa Hospital as well as a simpler, more effective system for specialist referrals. We are keen to engage with providers to keep apprised of other issues and opportunities for positive change. The OHT - ÉSO is also working on Ministry mandated quality improvement initiatives, including increasing overall access to preventative care (cancer screening indicators) and increasing primary care practices engaged in improvement activities focused on patient socio-demographic data