Both parties involved in the negotiations have posted the following public statements:

The 2012 AFHTO Conference is all about “Demonstrating and Celebrating the Value of Family Health Teams.” To help us do this, AFHTO is launching “Bright Lights” – a brand new program to recognize the leadership, outstanding work and significant progress being made to improve the value delivered by Family Health Teams.

"Family Health Teams should become the norm for primary care"

The statement above appears on p.24 of the 543-page Drummond Commission report, released this afternoon. Consuming over 40% of the province’s budget, health care receives much attention in this report (pp.145-202). There are a number of recommendations that are specific to FHTs/primary care, and are pasted below.

The Queen’s Family Health Team (QFHT), an academic teaching clinic with 22 family physicians, 20 nursing and allied health members and 50+ family medicine residents rotating through the clinic, embarked on a quality improvement process in 2008.

QFHT has established a Quality Plan and framework to systematically improve quality across the team.

The team has met or exceeded the provincial targets set for:

The Government of Ontario’s recently released Action Plan for Health Care puts a strong emphasis on primary care, placing “Family Health Care at the Centre of the System”.

Primary care is fundamental to the health of patients and our health system. Family Health Teams have been working hard to innovate, to improve care, and from that, to improve health. For this reason, AFHTO is pleased to see the Ontario Government is placing “Family Health Care at the Centre of the System”.

On January 17, Globe and Mail columnist Adam Radwanski wrote about the upcoming MOHLTC-OMA negotiations, focusing on costs and value for money (echoing the Auditor General of Ontario’s report). Unfortunately he used the term “family health team” when he was refering to physicians in capitated models in his statement, “The province will continue trying to get more family doctors away from fee-for-service.

AFHTO was invited to present to the Commission on Broader Public Sector Reform, chaired by economist Don Drummond and announced in the 2011 Ontario Budget speech last spring.  The Commission is to report in early 2012, in time to inform development of Government’s 2012-13 Budget, on its mandate to examine long-term, fundamental changes to the way government works including:

AFHTO is pleased to support Health Quality Ontario’s (HQO) Learning Community Wave 4 in Advanced Access and Efficiency for Primary Care.  I'm writing to let FHTs know about an upcoming opportunity to participate in this valuable learning experience. An important goal for a clinic implementing advanced access is that patients calling to schedule a visit are offered an appointment with their provider on their day of choice, which may be the same day or a prebooked appointment for a future day .

From www.ohatoday.com -- As part of their Safe at Work Ontario strategy, the Ontario Ministry of Labour (MOL) is conducting an Infection Prevention and Control heightened enforcement campaign at healthcare organizations throughout the month of November.