Wellington hospitals, Family Health Teams, Community Care Access Centres and Mental Health Services signed a collective agreement last Wednesday aimed at optimizing health and patient care in our rural communities. The local rural health partners include Groves Memorial Community Hospital, North Wellington Heath Care, Minto-Mapleton, Mount Forest and Upper Grand Family Health Teams, Waterloo Wellington Community Care Access Centre and Trellis Mental Health and Developmental Services.

Twenty-eight Ontarians who have looked at the inner-workings of the province's health system recommend more collaboration, integration and accountability to help ensure the sustainability of high-quality, accessible and publicly-funded health care. One of these recommendations states, "We urge the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care to accelerate the expansion of integrated family health teams throughout the province." The report, released on June 22, 2011, was commissioned by PwC (formerly called PricewaterhouseCoopers).

Four AFHTO members are profiled in two Success Studies found in Quality Monitor 2011 Report on Ontario's Health System, released today:

(New York, N.Y.): A ground-breaking Canadian blood pressure education program will be a powerful tool in fight to reduce stroke around the world. This morning, Dr. Sheldon Tobe, Chair of the Canadian Hypertension Education Program (CHEP) and a long-standing Heart and Stroke Foundation researcher, unveiled a new and powerful tool in the management of hypertension at the American Society of Hypertension (ASH) Scientific Meeting —The Heart&Stroke Hypertension Management Program.

The May 2011 edition of Canadian Family Physician reports on a study of team members in Ontario's FHTs, by Dr. Michelle Howard and others from McMaster University. Click here to access the full report.

Key findings are:

• Interprofessional teamwork, by way of family health teams (FHTs), shows promise as a strategy to facilitate optimal primary health care.

A number of leading experts from Canada and abroad comment on Ontario's experience in setting up Family Health Teams.  The Annals of Family Medicine has published these responses to an article on FHTs in the March 2011 edition of this American journal. The original article had been written for the benefit of Americans trying to come up with models of their own, by a team led by Walter Rosser of Queen's University. This publication was reported by Canadian Press, and the story picked up in a number of Ontario newspapers.

Atikokan -- Two years in, the Atikokan Falls Prevention Team has proven its value – so much so, the team plans to stay together, and continue helping seniors maintain the quality of their lives. “There isn’t another program in the region like this,” said occupational therapist Amanda Dickson, the team leader. “It would be pretty rare to get the professionals we have to be able to work so closely together on a team. In a small town, we are able to do that.” Originally, the group was one of 33 community-based fall prevention teams funded for two years by the Northwest LHIN and St.

Virtual wards are a model pioneered in England. They use the systems, staffing and daily routine of a hospital ward to provide case management to patients in the community but without the walls of the hospital. Patients who are admitted to the SETFHT Virtual Ward receive post-hospital discharge follow-up and interventions by a team of health care professional under the supervision of a physician.