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Improving Primary Health Care Through Collaboration: Briefing 1—Current Knowledge About Interprofessional Teams in Canada

The Conference Board of Canada, 30 pages, October 2012
Briefing by Thy Dinh
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This briefing is the first in a series of four that aims to provide an analysis of the impact of inter-professional teams on the Canadian primary health care system.

Document Highlights

Primary health care reform has great potential to improve population health and sustain our health care system. Yet, compared with other developed countries, Canada’s primary health care sector is inadequately supported and organized. This briefing is the first in a series of four that aims to provide an analysis of the impact of inter-professional teams on the Canadian primary health care system.

In this briefing, we provide a general overview of the inter-professional primary care (IPC) team models currently used in Canada. An IPC team is a group of professionals from different disciplines who communicate and work together in a formal arrangement to care for a patient population in a primary care setting. Optimizing IPC teams can help mitigate the economic burden of chronic conditions and comorbidities and improve the sustainability of the health care system.

The briefing content is based on our analysis of publicly available information and our consultations with administrators and government policy analysts.

Reviews

Mary Jurcina-Taylor -  April 23, 2013
The brief was comprehensive and a good comparative. Interesting that we (Canada) have a variety of professionals leading toward the same goal for our population.
 
Artem Safarov -  March 14, 2013
A good summary, although the omission of CFPC's Patient's Medical Home initiative is surprising.
 
Roberta Heale -  January 30, 2013
 
Ron Krawec -  January 22, 2013
Provides a good review of various implementations and pilots across the nation.  I could not emphasize enough the need for robust, integrated clinical information systems and the need for a single interdisciplinary plan of care that goes beyond just medical care but also addresses functional and psychosocial barriers to health and participation.
 
Jody Grywul -  January 22, 2013
found it interesting how statistics show Alberta's PCN benefited diabetics
 
Morgan Truax -  January 21, 2013
Interesting and informative.
 
Luc Chartrand -  January 11, 2013
 
Yu-Chen Lin -  January 4, 2013
 
Kaylee Ramage -  January 3, 2013
Interesting and informative.
 
John Arnold -  November 19, 2012
I wonder how many medical students are aware of this?
 
Sheri Ross -  November 15, 2012
 
Ahana Sarkar -  November 14, 2012
 
Mitch Gillingwater -  November 8, 2012
 
Joy Walker -  November 7, 2012
Good overview of teamwork in primary health care in Canada.  I was drawn to work in a CHC in Ontario because of their inter-professional team model; unfortunately, it didn't work that well in the 17 years I worked there.  We have a long ways to go; however, the care provided by inter-professional teams, regardless of how well they work, is still better than stand-alone physician private practice.
 
Justin Noble -  November 6, 2012
I appreciate the informative table that puts all the various models in one place, making comparison easier.
 
Susanne Watson -  November 5, 2012
Good perspective from across the county in terms of what efforts have been tried to create team based care from a primary health care perspective. Interprofessional team model have been identified but to achieve the desired outcomes - true collaboration must be present and this review doesn't make reference to the need for education of teams of the competencies required to move from inter-disciplinary practice to collaborative practice that includes integrated and shared care interventions.
 
Rob Acheson -  November 5, 2012
An interesting summary of the activities across the country. Also interesting, but not surprising, are the similarities.
 
Bruce Beamer -  November 5, 2012
A nice overview. Convenient to have this information collected in one spot.

One big challenge is the ability to adopt the innovation which has been shown to work already.
 
Brenda Galbraith -  November 5, 2012
Hopefully the Health care system will embrace the practice of Interdisipinary teams and put in place the resources and leadership necessary to make this system work.  Patient care in the future is going to be more complicated and a strain on funding. If we could plan out care more completely, the time individuals spend at a medical facility would be minimized.
 
Anne Brasset Latulippe -  November 5, 2012
Interesting. Give a good idea of what is going on in Canada. Little bit long for a brief.
 
Victoria Aceti Chlebus -  November 5, 2012
I liked the way the review was structured in that it compared different provinces' and terrorities' primary health care structures. I t illustrated to me how close all the provinces are in their viewing of primary health care structures - its usually just the terminology that is different.

Like other reviewers have said, there isn't new information for those already working in primary care, but as an instructor at the post-secondary level, this is a great teaching guide for those just learning about primary health care structures in Canada.
 
Corey Hammond -  November 5, 2012
Good concise info, but not much of a surprise to anyone working in primary care, I suspect. Without direction and leadership from government both federally and provincially, primary care will continue to stumble along, trying their best but wondering if they are actually getting any further ahead.
The situation is frustrating for providers who know that what we are doing isn't enough, but do not have the support to change anything, nor the knowledge of what to change and how.  
 
Rino Volpe -  November 2, 2012
This is a very good summary of what is going on in Canada in terms of different primary care delivery models.  It also shows that we are still trying to find our way.
 
Philip Baer -  October 31, 2012
A very useful summary of the Canadian landscape in primary care, covering the variety of different team models. As we move to this type of team medical care, we need to understand how to implement these new models effectively while preserving the autonomy of individual team members and preventing dysfunction within these teams.
 

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Improving Primary Health Care Through Collaboration: Briefing 1—Current Knowledge About Interprofessional Teams in CanadaRating:4.166666 out of5based on24 reviews.