RISE jamboree on intersections with specialty lines of service

On Friday, 10 February, RISE hosted a jamboree focused on the intersections between Ontario Health Teams and specialty lines of service. The jamboree brought together select stakeholders from Ontario Health Teams, the OHT Central Program of Supports, and providers of specialty service lines to discuss ways to collaborate to ensure that Ontarians can access the care they need.

Prior to the jamboree, two citizen panels were convened – one that engaged Ontarians with experience accessing or caring for those accessing specialty service lines, and one with patient, family, and caregiver advisors to Ontario Health Teams.

Prior to both panels and the jamboree, participants read a pre-circulated brief that summarized what is known based on the best-available research evidence and from experiences in other jurisdictions. At the events participants were asked to consider the challenges associated with planning for the intersections between Ontario Health Teams and specialty lines of service, and reflect on what Ontario can learn from the evidence and from five different models used in other jurisdictions to integrate specialty lines of services into care planning and delivery. Participants were also asked to deliberate about next steps, and identified the following:

• determining a clear definition for specialty service lines including what they include and how they may differ across the province
• developing a matrix (or framework) for considering the different dimensions of specialty service lines including complexity and components of the specialty service line, complexity of patients, transitions to other services and sectors, and complexity of engagement with partners
• co-designing different models for intersections with providers of specialty service lines and patients receiving care
• establishing strong structures at the provincial and regional levels, which may include standardization, to allow for flexibility within Ontario Health Teams

You can read more about the deliberations at each event as well as the rapid synthesis that informed this work, here.