Primary care is in crisis. Recent estimates indicate 6.5 million Canadians, including 2.5 million Ontarians, do not have a primary care provider.
Interprofessional primary care teams include a range of health professionals in addition to a family doctor or nurse practitioner, and are a key solution to improve access to primary care.
As of Dec. 1, 2024 family physician and former federal cabinet minister Jane Philpott is leading Ontario’s new Primary Care Action Team. Philpott states, “Our goal will be for 100 percent of Ontarians to be attached to a family doctor or nurse practitioner working in a publicly funded team, where they receive ongoing, comprehensive care.”
Her book Health for All articulates a vision of primary care, or what is being described as a “health home,” which would guarantee every person access to a primary care team close to where they live. The Primary Care Action Team has announced its plans to achieve this goal within five years.
A health home is the front door to the health system and includes a team of primary care providers that supports an individual’s health and wellness; co-ordinating care across the system and through every stage of their lives. Each health home would ensure you could receive primary care services based on where you live; ensuring that if you move to a new city you would have access to your local health home, just as you would have access to your local school.
Principles are needed to achieve these goals. These principles should build on successes and address historical challenges. Our team, comprised of primary care researchers and a community partner, has focused our work on understanding how primary care teams can support access and better outcomes.
Collectively we propose the following five principles for the Primary Care Action Team to consider, which emerged from our panel discussion at the 2024 Trillium Primary Care Research Day on Oct. 25, 2024.
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