2023 Bright Lights Awards

Shine a light on your team’s achievements.

AFHTO’s “Bright Lights” Awards recognize AFHTO members’ leadership, outstanding work and the significant progress being made to improve the value interprofessional primary care teams across Ontario deliver.

Bright Lights Award recipients are:

Innovators – making small changes for maximum impact to improve patient experience and outcomes
Team Players – interprofessional teams, collaborators and relationship builders
Demonstrating Impact – can show how their work is benefitting the health care system

Awards will be presented at the AFHTO 2023 Conference Awards ceremony, which will be held at lunchtime on October 25, 2023.

Nomination Eligibility:

For a program, initiative or individual to be eligible for a Bright Lights award, they must fulfil the following criteria:

Programs or initiatives must be undertaken by an AFHTO member. If the nomination involves a team’s partners, the work must either be led by an AFHTO member or they otherwise play an integral role.
Programs or initiatives that have previously won a Bright Lights award are no longer eligible, whether in their original or expanded model.
Individuals must be staff or affiliated with an AFHTO member and the nomination must be for work they’ve performed in their capacity as such. Please note- education grants will be paid to the team rather than an individual.

Award Categories

Awards will be presented in six categories this year:

Using a population-based approach to provide care to the community
Optimising teams’ capacity and creating efficiencies
Organizing primary care to advance Ontario Health Teams
Embedding mental health and home care in primary care
Special recognition for underrepresented teams

In 2022 Wawa FHT won special recognition for providing vital access to virtual medical abortions for an urban population as a small rural team . This year all new/underrepresented primary care teams again can win an award for their contributions to Ontario’s healthcare system. The winner(s) will be selected based on the strength of their nomination to one of the five categories above.

Education grants for all categories will be given to award recipients thanks to the generous donations of our sponsor Boehringer Ingelheim.

Shine a light on your team - Make a nomination today:

Review the nomination categories in advance (see nomination guide pg. 3 for descriptions).
Review the nomination evaluation criteria (see nomination guide pg. 2 for details).
Complete the online nomination form and send all supporting materials before noon July 17, 2023 (extended deadline).
Submit supporting documents to info@afhto.ca:
- 1-4 high-quality photos of nominees in png. or jpg. format to be featured at the Awards Ceremony on September 19th (Photos should be at least 500 KB in size.)
- Take a video (30-90 seconds long) with your smartphone and share with info@afhto.ca. We’ll be promoting nominations before the conference, so please consider providing an overview of your initiative as part of your nomination(optional).
- Signed statement of attestation to release photos for AFHTO use.
- Any supporting evidence and materials as appropriate.
- Deadline to submit photos and video is July 28, 2023.

We look forward to seeing your nominations and recognizing ALL the excellent work being done!

Presented with the support of:

Past Award Winners

Congratulations again to all the past winners of our “Bright Lights” Awards! To learn more about past “Bright Lights” Awards winners and their accomplishments, please visit the links below:

Online Hall of Fame

We are shining more light on all the "Bright Lights" nominees! You can see the nomination through the online hall of fame:

AFHTO Bright Lights Awards