December 3, 2009 CIHI study identifies care gap

Partnering with OMA Announcement

Primary Physician Wave 3 Application Form

Partnerships for Health Bulletin - August 2009

Healthcare Leaders Join Partnerships for Health Team

Nine new primary care practices have enrolled to become part of the second wave of Partnerships for Health (PFH), an initiative to improve the quality of care for adults with diabetes in the South West LHIN. They will participate in learning and improvement activities over the next year.

“We’re very excited to have the new practices on board,” says Marg McAlister, a member of the PFH leadership team. “These are teams of forward-thinking, innovative health professionals. It’s remarkable -- they are already very busy yet they have chosen to commit time to making improvements so that they can provide their patients with the best possible care.” 

Read the rest of the Media Release here: Next Wave of Partners Work on Improvements to Diabetes Care

Diabetes is a serious and growing health problem, and a significant burden for patients, their families and primary care teams. It’s clear that better prevention and management is the key. That’s why Partnerships for Health (PFH) is such an important initiative for the South West Local Health Integration Network (LHIN).

PFH puts Ontario’s Chronic Disease Prevention and Management (CDPM) framework into action, fostering the use of evidence-based best practices to manage adult patients with diabetes proactively. The initiative brings together key health care providers – family doctors, South West Community Care Access Centre (CCAC) case managers, diabetes educators, and others – in an integrated approach to care. Patient self-management is also a critical component. “Partnerships for Health is all about breaking out of our current paradigms and working in new and different ways,” says Marg McAlister, a member of the leadership team.

Read the rest of the bulletin here: Improving Diabetes Care Vol 1

Leading the Way

Partnerships for Health (PFH) is at the forefront of province-wide initiatives to tackle chronic disease management and introduce electronic health records.

You could say it's a case of being in the right place at the right time. Thanks to recent announcements from the Ontario government, PFH will now have more impact.

The government confirmed the South West Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) as an early adopter of the provincial e-Health strategy and as a site for advancing team-based family health care as a component of the diabetes strategy. With these announcements came a commitment to make new resources available. Says Kelly Gillis, Senior Director, Planning, Integration and Community Engagement with the South West LHIN, "This means we can refocus existing PFH funding to support a broader reach to more primary health care settings."

Read the rest of the bulletin here: Partnerships for Health Bulletin - November 2008

Participants from the Thames Valley FHT (Strathroy Medical site), Brockton FHT and Clinton FHT and their partner organizations came together for a full two day session on inter-professional collaborative practice for patients with diabetes. The mix of lecture and group work was “valuable” and enabled the teams to advance their work and improve their working relationships.

Click here for short clips from the presenters!

An online registry to manage diabetes, improved access to insulin pumps and dialysis services and additional supports help form a new, $741 million diabetes strategy aimed at improving the lives of 900,000 people.

Full July 22, 2008 News Release (PDF)

Diabetes Strategy Backgrounder (PDF)

Diabetes Programs Backgrounder (PDF)

“It was a very busy day”

Three Family Health Teams (FHTs) and their community partners gather to kick start the process.

On May 29, a group of Partnerships for Health team members met at the Listowel Golf and Country Club for the first major event of the project. The 41 participants represented the Brockton, Clinton and Strathroy Family Health Teams and their community partners. “It was a very busy day,” says Jocelyn Rowe, Nurse Practitioner with the Brockton Area FHT, “but it was a lot of fun too.”

Read the rest of the bulletin here: Partnerships for Health Bulletin - July 2008