The Partnership Panel provided senior leaders with the opportunity to share experiences and insights from their involvement in the GPSC and the Divisions of Family Practice initiative.
 

Panel participants (Drs Steve Goodchild, John Hamilton, Khati Hendry, and Alan Ruddiman, and Mr Doug Hughes) reflected upon the past, present, and future state of the collaborative relationship as it pertains to the work of divisions.

 

Panelists identified the establishment of the GPSC and the growing impact of divisions as critical to re-shaping the landscape of primary care medicine. Likewise, the strength of provincial, regional, and local leadership was described by Dr Hendry as a continuous and evolving journey—one that has seen GPs work through tough questions in an exploration for answers to system improvement.

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Divisions of Family Practice - Strengthening Primary Care
 

The increasing impact of the Divisions initiative was described by panelists as a testament to physicians finding their voice and recognizing divisions as a vehicle for engaging in new and revitalized relationships and activities. The residential care initiative, A GP for Me, and the maternity care for BC (MC4BC) program were cited as examples of ways in which physician engagement with division projects has revitalized and strengthened primary care.

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Technology
 

Several panelists spoke to the role of technology and the early work of PITO (Physician Information Technology Office) in shifting the paradigm of how GPs have traditionally managed patient medical records. They endorsed the importance of finding new roles for technology in supporting continuous advancements in general practice—specifically EMR improvement, telemedicine, and secure texting.

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Team-based care
 

Panelists reflected on the need to move toward a team-based care model to create efficiencies in the health care system, positing that this restructuring of care could be supported by providing more options in billing and fee structures. Building teams to provide palliative and residential care was identified as a possible starting point for this work.

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Partnership and the patient medical home
 

The move toward the patient medical home model is critical to setting the course for the future of health care. Panelists encouraged the audience to use jointly-built structures such as the CSCs and regional interdivisional councils to build meaningful dialogue in partner relationships, acknowledging that time is critical to the process of trust-building and achieving operational excellence. Partners can build trust by recognizing that more similarities than differences exist between them. This trust will build mutual support for the work that lies ahead in the move toward the patient medical home, which will include strengthening community health care and supporting physicians to practice differently.

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Partnerships can also benefit through:
 

• Linking with educational facilities to support medical graduate expectations.
   

• Working with specialist colleagues.
   

• Strengthening the collegial voice with MSAs to build seamless transitions in care.
   

• Strengthening alignment between the JCCs and various provincial committees.

 

Building strong partnerships within patient medical home work is seen as key to supporting health authorities distribution of physician resources and accessing alternate sources of funding.

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At the regional level there are opportunities to align partnership activities with IT and quality improvement projects, and the Provincial Evaluation and Impact Measures frameworks.

 

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Moving forward
 

Panelists wrapped up the session with a discussion of the work ahead. Dr Ruddiman opined that change is inevitable, but progress is optional, prompting participants to consider how to deliver care differently and how to govern work going forward, in order to increase efficiencies, reduce health spending, and remove barriers to health care access for vulnerable patients.

 

Several panelists spoke about how the future of health care should include the voice of the patient, recognizing that patients are an important part of the health care evolution, and their input can add clarity to the shifting landscape of primary health care and cultural change.