Minister releases Seniors Strategy for Ontario

The full report, Living Longer, Living Well is now available in both English and French on the Ministry’s website at: English: http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/common/ministry/publications/reports/seniors_strategy/ French: http://www.health.gov.on.ca/fr/common/ministry/publications/reports/seniors_strategy/default.aspx ************************************************************ January 8, 2013 - Living Longer, Living Well – Highlights and key recommendations from the report of Dr. Samir K. Sinha, Provincial Lead, Ontario’s Seniors Strategy – was released on Tuesday, January 8, 2013. Government committed to developing such a strategy in Ontario’s Action Plan for Health Care. The full 200 page report, containing 169 recommendations, is not yet released and is in the process of being translated. With the release, the Minister committed to moving ahead immediately with two of the recommendations:
  • Match every older Ontarian who wants one with a primary care provider through Health Links and new physician incentives to care for high-needs patients. (These incentives were included in the most recent Physician Services Agreement.)
  • Improve access to home care by expanding personal support worker services through community support agencies for low-needs patients.
The Seniors Strategy is built on five principles:  Access, Equity, Choice, Value, Quality. Its recommendations cover a comprehensive range of topics: promoting health and wellness, primary/community/acute/long-term care, caring for caregivers, developing elder-friendly communities, addressing ageism and elder abuse, medications, and addressing unique needs of older aboriginal peoples and others with diverse needs, such as those from LGBTQ and ethnocultural communities and those with limited abilities. The section on primary care is reproduced below.  Implementation details have not been announced – the Minister stated that Dr. Sinha is developing the detailed implementation plan. ----------------- Excerpt from Living Longer, Living Well : Strengthening Primary Care for Older Ontarians Through our consultations, we learned that strengthening the provision of primary care will be essential to securing the health of older Ontarians. As they are likely to have more complex and often inter-related health and social care issues, they will often benefit from a team-based approach to primary care that prioritizes continuous quality improvement. We also learned through our consultations that communication among primary care providers, hospitals, and community care co-ordinators in particular, is not currently required. This often can create care gaps that everyone agrees should not exist. We also learned that there still are older Ontarians who cannot easily find a primary care provider. This is especially the case for those who are homebound and would benefit from house calls. We need to do more to improve primary care for older Ontarians by building models of care that deliver high quality care and best serve their needs, while ensuring that every older Ontarian who wants a primary care provider can get one. Key Recommendations:
  • The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care should promote and develop mechanisms in accordance with legislative/regulatory frameworks to advance the goal that all older Ontarians who want a primary care provider will have one.
  • The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care should ensure that its development of Quality Improvement Plans in Primary Care and Health Links support a core focus around the care of older Ontarians – with an emphasis on supporting primary care access for older adults and focusing attention on areas of care that influence the health and well-being of older adults.
  • The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care should mandate that care co-ordinators from Community Care Access Centres (CCACs), Community Support Services (CSS), and community mental health agencies providing care or service co-ordination support must identify and notify a patient’s primary care provider of their name, their role, their contact details, and the services being co-ordinated for the patient/client.
  • The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care should maintain and improve funding levels to support the provision of house calls by primary care providers.