Four AFHTO members are profiled as “Examples of success” found in the 2012 Report on Ontario’s Health System from Health Quality Ontario, released today:

MOHLTC has e-mailed the invitation below to FHTs.  Please follow up with your Ministry rep to get the full package, if you did not receive it.

SENT: July 24, 2012 4:57 PM

SUBJECT: FHT - Employment supports for physician assistant graduates 2012

Dear Family Health Team,

The first ever “Bright Lights” awards will be presented at the AFHTO 2012 Conference Awards Dinner, on October 16.  This award program recognizes the leadership, outstanding work and significant progress being made to improve the value delivered by Family Health Teams. There are 11 award categories corresponding to the themes of the AFHTO 2012 Conference.

The Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario launched a task force, bringing together key stakeholders to review the role of almost 4,300 primary care nurses (RNs and RPNs) currently practising in Ontario.

The Task Force focused on two progressive phases of outcomes.

Please find the proceedings from a full day Think Tank on strengthening collaboration between public health and primary care held on April 19, 2012 at the offices of Public Health Ontario in Toronto, Ontario.

May 25^th is the deadline to submit presentation abstracts and award nominations

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: