Mid-West Toronto launched two new services linking patients to primary care and providing Torontonians with a community team of clinicians. <\/p>\n
More than 15,000 Torontonians now have a family doctor thanks to two new services being offered by a health team in the city.<\/p>\n
Mid-West Toronto, a health team that serves neighbourhoods from Casa Loma to Exhibition Place, launched two complementary services to boost Torontonians\u2019 access to primary care in their community. <\/p>\n
These services allow patients to access the community team, which takes a team-based approach to provide care like mental health counselling and nutrition, while a primary care attachment liaison helps connect them with a family doctor. <\/p>\n
\u201cSuddenly, this person not only has a primary care provider, but they also have a social worker to talk about their mental health, a dietitian to talk about their diabetes management, a nurse that\u2019s going to look at their foot care,\u201d Justine Humphries, executive lead of Mid-West Toronto and vice president of strategy at Kensington Health, said in an interview with CTV News Toronto. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo, somebody that might have been in the system, struggling to get the health care that they need, now has sort of a whole team working with them to provide care.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of the 15,000 new Torontonians who have been connected to a primary care provider through the services so far, 9,000 of those people were on the waitlist for a family doctor since before January of last year. <\/p>\n
Dr. Faye Goldman, a family doctor and co-chair of the Mid-West Toronto Family Practice Network, says part of the advantage of the program is that the liaison can significantly speed up the onboarding of new patients. <\/p>\n
Onboarding a new patient, she said, otherwise requires finding their chart medical records, opening a new chart and adding that information, orienting the patient to their new family doctor\u2019s practice, and instructing the scheduling and screening requirements. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat often takes hours of time,\u201d Goldman said. \u201cAs a family doctor, reviewing old previous records is our after-hours fun reading, which can be hundreds and hundreds of pages to go through and to supplement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then, during the first appointment, Dr. Goldman says it takes about 30 to 40 minutes to go over a new patient\u2019s medical history. With the attachment liaison, though, Goldman says she has everything she needs right as she greets her patient in her office, saving her hours of her time.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of that has been taken over by this attachment liaison, so when I open up this new patient chart, I\u2019ve never seen this person before, they\u2019re in front of me, everything is there, and we can just focus on what to do next,\u201d Goldman said. <\/p>\n
The need for family doctors <\/p>\n