{"id":25350,"date":"2019-12-05T18:03:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-05T23:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=25350"},"modified":"2019-12-13T18:50:33","modified_gmt":"2019-12-13T23:50:33","slug":"southlake-community-ontario-health-team-gets-green-light-from-province","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/southlake-community-ontario-health-team-gets-green-light-from-province\/","title":{"rendered":"Southlake Community Ontario Health Team gets green light from Province"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Team will begin tackling senior care in 2020: Southlake<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Southlake Regional Health Centre\u2019s ongoing efforts to\nprovide more connected care for its patients in York Region and South Simcoe\nreceived a significant boost on Thursday as the Province formally approved the\nestablishment of the Southlake Community Ontario Health Team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ontario Health Teams (OHTs) are at the centre of the\nProvincial Government\u2019s reforms to the Province\u2019s healthcare system, and these\nteams are tasked to work as one to \u201ccreate a seamless local healthcare system\u201d\nin the effort to eliminate \u201challway healthcare.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The approval of the Southlake Community OHT, one of the\nfirst 24 teams to get the formal green light, was announced by Health Minister\n(and Newmarket-Aurora MPP) Christine Elliott, accompanied by Arden Krystal,\nPresident & CEO of Southlake Regional Health Centre, at the York Region\nParamedic Services Headquarters in East Gwillimbury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cToday is a really significant day for health care in our\nRegion,\u201d said Ms. Elliott. \u201cIt is a really significant day, I would say, for\nhealthcare across Ontario. I know for many, especially patients left frustrated\nby a disconnected and fractured system, today has felt like a long time in\ncoming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe all know our healthcare system is facing pressures\nand across Ontario patients and families are getting lost in the system. They\nare falling through the cracks, waiting too long to be able to access the care\nthey need. That\u2019s why our government [has made] a commitment to Ontarians to\nbuild a sustainable and connected public healthcare system focused on the needs\nof patients and on ending hallway healthcare. To achieve our goal, our\ngovernment is creating OHTs and these teams will better support patients and\ntheir families by connecting care providers to work as one single team. In\ndoing so, OHTs will ensure a seamless experience for patients and smooth\ntransitions through the systems.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its first year, the Southlake Community OHT will focus\non supporting older adults experiencing complex care needs, along with adults\nwith mental health and addictions challenges, the Minister elaborated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese new services will dramatically improve the patient\nexperience and make navigating the health care system easier and more\nconvenient,\u201d she said. \u201cThere are already great examples of community providers\ncoming together to provide this patient-centred care like Southlake At Home,\none of my favourite provider programs, which is a home and community care\nprovider program that provides patients with an intensive transitional care\nplan to ensure their safe return from hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI can tell you this is going to be very popular. There\nare many other hospitals across the Province that are looking at the Southlake\nAt Home model and this kind of innovation is exactly what we\u2019re looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to representatives from Southlake Regional\nHealth Centre, partners involved in the Southlake Community OHT include the\nAurora-Newmarket Family Health Team, Bayshore HealthCare, the Canadian Mental\nHealth Association (York & South Simcoe), CHATS (Community & Home\nAssistance to Seniors), Enhanced Care, Extendicare, Georgina Nurse\nPractitioner-Led Clinic, LOFT Community Services, SE Health, Southlake Academic\nFamily Health Team, the Regional Municipality of York, and over 140 local\nfamily physicians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of our objectives is to strengthen the supports that\nthe community sector provides for the most complex patients we care for in\norder to help them stay safely and with dignity at home for as long as\npossible,\u201d said Christina Bisanz, CEO of CHATS. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Added Rebecca Shields, CEO of the Canadian Mental Health\nAssociation of York Region & South Simcoe: \u201cCollaboration can have a huge\npositive impact, especially when it comes to community mental health,\naddictions and supportive housing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This support was underscored at Thursday\u2019s announcement\nby Dr. David Makary, Primary Care Lead on the Southlake Community OHT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOver the past seven months, we have been engaging family\nphysicians and nurse practitioners within our community,\u201d he said, noting\nfeedback ultimately centred on a few key themes. \u201cFirst, the current siloed\nsystem leads to sub-optimal patient outcomes, something we all know very well.\nThe primary care providers across our area are experiencing increasing burnout\nand finally\u2026arranging care for complex patients is difficult, complicated, and\ninvolves way too much paperwork. While I am happy to say that the Southlake\nCommunity OHT, we are committed to addressing these issues and implementing an\nOHT that provides both seamless care for patients and families, as well as\nsimplifying processes for our providers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[For] the OHT to be successful, system coordination\nneeds to be rooted in primary care. At the Southlake Community OHT, we are\nbuilding on insights from leading international health care systems in order to\njump from the disparate silos to truly connected care. We\u2019re going to start\nwith our frail, older population who have complex medical and social needs. As\nwell as our adults with mental health needs and addictions. The best part is\nthat we\u2019re designing a model that can expand to include other populations over\ntime and, as we build, we\u2019re leading. We believe our model will help improve\npatient outcomes, enhance patient and provider satisfaction and improve the\nvalue and efficiency in our system.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Krystal agreed that \u201cbreaking down silos and\neliminating barriers\u201d will be the key to the OHT\u2019s success. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLong delays\u2026 do not contribute to a great experience for\nthese patients as it has a negative effect on them not only on them personally\nbut on patients elsewhere in the hospital who are waiting in emergency,\u201d she\nsaid. \u201cAnd it has a negative impact for our staff who know that they should be\ndoing something different for patients. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe delays have a ripple effect. Patients wait longer in the emergency department, sometimes surgeries can be delayed by patients of different services that are in all the different types of program areas. We\u2019re forced to care for patients in unconventional spaces such as gyms, lounges or even hallways. With Southlake At Home, it was born out of the belief that collaborating directly with home care providers and community support agencies\u2026 we could dramatically reduce the wait for home care and keep people healthy at home. Today I am happy to say we have virtually eliminated the wait to get home for our complex patients via this program. Patient by patient, transition by transition, we are working together to bring connected care to our part of the province and every day we are seeing this model produce better outcomes for patients. Not only is it improving patient experience and staff satisfaction, but it is significantly less expensive than the traditional approach.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir <\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Team will begin tackling senior care in 2020: Southlake Southlake Regional Health Centre\u2019s ongoing efforts to provide more connected care for its patients in York Region and South Simcoe received a significant boost on Thursday as the Province formally approved the establishment of the Southlake Community Ontario Health Team. Ontario Health Teams (OHTs) are at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/2019-12-05-07.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6AS","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-17 16:48:06","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}