Why the Georgian Bay Family Health Team Was Formed
The Georgian Bay Family Health Team (GBFHT) covers a 35 km area around the Collingwood General and Marine Hospital (CGMH) and includes the towns of Collingwood, Wasaga Beach, The Blue Mountains, and Clearview (including Stayner, Nottawa, Duntroon and Creemore).
About 75,000 people live in this area full time. In the summer and winter the population can grow anywhere between 30-50%. The population growth over the last 10 years has been almost double the Ontario average. Our area also has one of highest percentages of people over 65 in the entire province – and this number is growing thanks to the many retirees making Georgian Bay their home.
Information from the government shows that the overall health of people within the area is relatively low. The GBFHT population has higher than provincial averages in number of emergency visits and number of hospital stays.
The GBFHT area also has (by %):
- More people moving to the area;
- More senior citizens;
- More smokers,
- More people with activity limitations;
- More people with arthritis/rheumatism; and,
- A higher than average death and hospitalization rate.
Mental health and social services are needed thanks to much higher levels of drug and alcohol abuse and suicides. The information also showed that many people in the GBFHT area did not go to a medical doctor in the past year. They also have a lower life expectancy at birth than the provincial average.
All of these things have had put stress on the health services in the community and on both the Collingwood General and Marine Hospital and the Collingwood Mental Health Service. Also because of these problems there is a large number – 20,000 – of “orphan patients” (people without a family doctor) in the Georgian Bay area.
The GBFHT has developed a plan which will have greatly improve the current healthcare situation. The GBFHT’s vision/mission statement sums it up:
We are a patient-centred primary health care team set up to provide unparalleled collaborative health care to improve the overall health of the Georgian Bay population.
What Are Family Health Teams?
Family Health Teams (FHTs) are part of a new health care system created by the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care which will reduce wait times for key procedures, increase the number of doctors and nurses, and invests heavily in community-based health care in order to ease the pressure on hospitals and deliver care where people need it most.
FHTs differ from traditional “doctor’s offices” because they include a wide range of health professionals working together to serve the unique needs of people in their community.
Family Health Teams will:
- Improve patient access to health care by providing an expanded, comprehensive range of health care services delivered by teams of doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners and other health care professionals – such as dietitians and mental health counsellors – who meet local health care needs.
- Expand access to health care by providing comprehensive health care day and night, seven days a week close to home – and will provide access to registered nurses after-hours through the Telephone Health Advisory Service (THAS).
- Better prevent and manage chronic diseases such as diabetes and asthma.
- Improve the co-ordination of health care by better linking patients to other parts of the health care system such as hospitals, long-term care homes, public health, mental health and community programs and services.
- Give medical access to people who are “orphan patients” – people without a family doctor due to physician shortages. (Physicians working in an interdisciplinary group practice see up to 52 per cent more patients than those working in a solo practice.)
- Use information technology – computers – so health care providers across the system can share timely and secure access to test results, patient records and other important patient information.
- Patients are not the only winners. Physicians working in FHTs receive administrative and infrastructure support that allows them to spend less time on administrative tasks and more time caring for patients. All members of the team will be able to share their workload and benefit from the support and skills of other complementary health professionals.