Family health care on the Sunshine Coast is getting a revamp in what proponents describe as a more “collaborative” and “team-based” model.
Last August, the province approved a four-year service plan for the implementation of a Sunshine Coast Primary Care Network (PCN).
While formal announcements are to come, the PCN was introduced to the public at a round table April 29 as part of the Sunshine Coast Resource Centre Poverty Reduction Project’s “Be the Change” campaign.
“The goal of this is for every one of you that wants one, to have a family physician or nurse practitioner – primary care provider – that knows you,” Dr. Rob Lehman, chair of the Sunshine Coast Division of Family Practice, told the crowd at Seaside Centre.
The PCN model sees a team of health care professionals working together on all aspects of care. “Medical application, social issues, all those things that impact our health,” elaborated Lehman. “We've only been addressing a small portion of those in a traditional solo family practice.”
The Sunshine Coast project is part of the province’s third wave of PCNs. About 100 PCNs are planned across the province by 2025, each unique to its region, said Katie Clogg, PCN manager for the local Division of Family Practice.
The province has approved hiring three full-time and one part-time social workers, two full-time and one part-time counsellors (one has been hired and is launching his service mid-May), six full-time and one part-time registered nurses with specialties, one shíshálh Nation Elder and Indigenous community champion, one community pharmacist (hired) and an unlimited number of new-to-practice family doctors and nurse practitioners, said Clogg. They have hired one nurse practitioner so far, who will be based out of Cowrie Medical Clinic.
The ministry has also funded a patient services coordinator, who is also managing the local health clinic registry.
The team-based approach “recognizes the idea that what the patient might need at any given time might not be a family doctor – it’s possible their needs might be better supported through a social worker or through a counsellor,” said Clogg. So while there’s a “most responsible provider” at the centre of care (a doctor or nurse practitioner), several other professions support that role.
Besides increasing primary care access, other goals of the PCN include culturally safe care, serving the community’s most vulnerable and increasing access for those farther away in rural communities (basically, supporting the Pender Harbour Health Centre).
Mental health is a “tremendous priority” for the PCN, said Clogg. “The number of family doctors that are supporting issues with mental health exceeds almost any other health concern on the Coast.”
Asked about how the PCN will work for people who don’t have a family doctor, Clogg said implementation so far looks a bit different for each resource. However, ensuring access to the PCN for those who don’t have a primary care provider is among the priorities of the network.
Rather than focusing on the complex, chronic and most serious health needs, the PCN “focuses on meeting mild to moderate health care needs of our community in a patient's medical home,” added VCH PCN manager Shari Myhill-Jones. “It’s coordinated care like we’ve never done it before.”
The PCN is a provincial initiative from the Ministry of Health, Divisions of Family Practice, Doctors of BC Medical Association as well as the health authorities (in the case of the Coast, VCH), and locally partnering with shíshálh Nation and the Pender Harbour Health Centre. Local locations include the shíshálh Nation Community Services Health Department; Arbutus, Gibsons and Cowrie Medical Clinics; Upstream Family Medicine and Pender Harbour Health Centre. These clinics do not have the space to co-locate the PCN allied health professionals, so work is under way to find a workspace for the new hires, the crowd heard.
Community engagement for the PCN will happen, said Lehman, at the moment it’s through the Thriving Communities network, the child and youth mental health and substance use local action team and other committees in the community. They’re also looking at setting up an advisory group and a patient advisory table.
The PCN team must be networked into the community, said Lehman. “To break down all the little silos that are out there, everybody trying to do the best work they can but not in concert with the people that are all trying to achieve the same goal.”
Lehman said that when he started out his family doctor training in Ontario, it was in a team-based environment, working with a social worker, psychologist, practice registered nurse and public health nurse – a team he’s dearly missed in the decades since. “I’ve been waiting for this for 40 years and that’s why I’m still here.”
Correction: The print version of this story said that the PCN was the Public Health Network, it is in fact the Primary Care Network. We regret the error.
