As the number of people without a family physician in Ontario continues to climb, the province announced earlier this month it will spend $110 million to connect more than 300,000 people to primary care teams.
Ross Kirkconnell, executive director of the Guelph Family Health Team, said Guelph is "unique" in the province, as it already has a team-based care approach in place.
Starting babies off with the supports they need is a great way to begin addressing the physician shortage, he believes.
During the pandemic, the Guelph Family Health Team noticed a large number of newborn babies being discharged from hospital who did not have a family doctor.
“Recently, with support from local physicians, midwives and Guelph General Hospital, we have put in place a process to ensure every baby born in Guelph has a doctor. Starting new babies off with the needed supports is so important to their health throughout their lives,” Kirkconnell said.
“So, we got some doctors together, had a discussion and said, what’s one thing that we can do to help the future of our population? And that was to make sure every baby has a family doctor or a pediatrician. The physicians jumped for it and said this was a fantastic idea.”
Working with obstetricians and midwives, the family health team went through the list of 100 doctors in Guelph.
“Family doctors have responded 100 per cent on this. They have stepped up. Since May, over 400 people are matched. This includes 200 babies, and the rest are their parents and family members,” Kirkconnell said.
“We would love to broaden this to the rest of the population, but this is a start."
With over 1.3 million people in Ontario without a primary care provider, various strategies in Guelph aim to help address the physician shortage.
Since 2006, the Guelph Family Health Team has taken a team-based approach to patient care that is evolving to include a variety of health care professionals that offer patients support for every need, and in every stage of life.
Patients benefit from the expertise of nurse practitioners, registered nurses, clinical pharmacists, registered dietitians, mental health counsellors and health promotion specialists.
Kirkconnell said referrals to these in-house care team specialists helps to reduce wait times and improves access for everyone.
“About 15 years ago, the government of Ontario came out with a family health team policy. At that time, we were in another physician shortage crunch. So, physician groups received funding to bring on other health care professionals to work with them,” Kirkconnell said.
In Guelph, a group of about 30 doctors applied and were approved for a family health team. Over the years, that group has grown to include about 100 family doctors.
“Since 2020, we have added 26 family physicians to the community. We have successfully brought in new physicians to ensure patients of retiring doctors are not left without support,” Kirkconnell explained. “Knowing Guelph is growing by about two per cent per a year, we have added two to three physicians every year. While we are close but not there yet, our goal is to get to a point where every Guelph resident has a local family doctor if they need one.”
Part of the job, Kirkconnell said, is to make sure the physician workforce feels supported.
“We support them by helping their practice with team-based care. If a family physician has a patient who is dealing with depression, that patient can be referred to a family counsellor,” he said.
About 18 per cent of Guelph’s population is over 65 years old.
“With that, we have a lot of folks with age-related issues such as type 2 diabetes, or high blood pressure. It’s helpful to have a chronic nurse in the practice to do some lifestyle couching. This strategy helps doctors with their patients.”
The family health team's strategy of recruitment focuses on replacing retiring physicians and increasing the overall number of physicians to reflect Guelph’s growth and diversity.
And when it comes to recruiting new physicians, Kirkconnell said it’s important to consider the city’s changing population.
“We are really excited that the demographics in the medical schools are reflecting the changing demographics in Canada. So, as we look for new physicians, there are folks that speak quite a range of languages, and that’s great news for our community," he said.
"We also want to know if students might have other interests. Do they want to work with long-term care, sports medicine or palliative care? Some want to work in emergency, so we work closely with Guelph General. Having that personal contact is worth its weight in gold.”
Dr. Ken Woo from Toronto now lives and works in Guelph's south end.
“I did my residency at Queen's in Kingston. And then after that, I worked around Toronto and then moved to Kitchener for a job. I lived there for about five years, at the urgent care clinics, before moving to Guelph,” Woo said.
“I met my wife in Kitchener and we thought, well, where would we like to live? At that time, we had a young son. We landed on Guelph because it is a little closer to Toronto, where my family is from, and my in-laws are nearby in Elora.”
After connecting with Kirkconnell, Woo reached out a local physician who was looking into retirement.
“We met and I worked, for a little bit, alongside her. Eventually I took over her practice,” Woo said.
Woo said having worked in several different areas, Guelph is exceptional in being able to access team-based care support from the family health team.
"Everyday, we hear of some new problem going on, whether that is not being able to find a family doctor, or someone is in emergency for 48 hours without seeing a doctor. We are extremely lucky in Guelph to have a team already in place,” Woo said.
“We want to connect as many patients as possible to all of these services, but obviously one doctor can only take on so many patients.”
