Primary-care enablement

In response to primary-care (PC) access, attachment and enablement being identified as a priority area for OHTs and their PCNs, RISE will now focus much its coaching and other implementation supports on PC enablement. In particular RISE will support three key deliverables:

  1. advance a PCN that organizes the local PC sector and engages interprofessional PC clinicians in OHT planning, decision-making and implementation of clinical priorities (e.g., reach as-yet-not-engaged clinicians, engage local PC clinical leaders, maintain an email distribution list, and promote the upcoming provider-experience survey)
  2. fund a PCN Clinical Lead (or Clinical Leads) to advance the PCN, participate in OHT decision-making and regional PCN leadership tables (where applicable), support OHT and PCN clinical initiatives (OHT deliverables 3-6 and 9-14), and lead engagement with PCN members on local and provincial initiatives
  3. communicate and engage with PC clinicians to advance provincial clinical supports priorities including online appointment booking (OAB), eReferral, Central intake, and Mental health and addictions (MHA) provincial coordinated access, while leveraging regional deployment teams.
In the short term, RISE will be particularly focused on deliverables 1 and 2.

RISE will also continue to focus over the long term on clinical improvement using a population-health management approach, with a particular focus on advancing chronic disease prevention and management (CDPM) activities.

RISE will underpin its enablement of PCNs in general, and – more specifically – clinical leadership and leadership-supported clinical improvements and clinical supports, with more explicit attention to PC leadership capabilities. In doing so, RISE will address directly what is unique about the leadership context for PCN enablement in Ontario, which includes that clinicians largely work in private practice with no tradition of or incentives for leading in a local primary-care system. In this work, RISE will use the LEADS framework, while noting connections to and complementarities with the adaptive leadership framework and to Rotman’s framework for healthcare leadership, and in collaboration with ALIGN.

Starting in September, RISE will be pivoting its peer sharing and learning series – convened on the third Thursday of every month from 11 am to 12 noon – to address high-priority topics, including:

  1. PC engagement, including meeting clinicians providing comprehensive primary care, exploring affiliation models to reach unattached patients, and articulating the value proposition to as-yet-not-engaged family physicians and practices
  2. clinical leadership capabilities (particularly the ‘Engage others’ capability) that underpin membership recruitment (e.g., how best to engage effectively with peers) and that underpin broader roles (e.g., how to work with an executive director or Collaboration Council or their equivalents).
These sessions will use a case-based approach followed by a panel and broader discussion, and be complemented by:
  • resources developed based on these peer sharing and learning sessions
  • problem-solving sessions where appropriate
  • regional group coaching sessions for multiple PCNs in region, particularly those that are identified as early in development (albeit with no cap on the number in each region)
  • facilitated PC shared space on Quorum.

Over time, RISE will add to this focus – on PC engagement and clinical leadership – additional implementation supports focused on:

  • implementation and change enablement
  • teamwork, coordination and system integration.

RISE looks forward to working with existing and new partners, including Ontario Health regional leadership and groups, on supporting PC enablement.