The Ontario College of Family Physicians Supports Ontario's Action Plan for Health Care to Enhance Family Practices

The Key to a Healthier Ontario

TORONTO, Jan. 31, 2012 /CNW/ - The Ontario College of Family Physicians (OCFP) welcomes the Ontario government's commitment to faster access and a stronger link to care delivered by family physicians and their practice teams as outlined in the release of Ontario's Action Plan for Health Care.  The plan focuses on quality improvements to care that Ontarians receive by ensuring that all family physicians and their team members are equipped to integrate the latest evidence-based care into their practice.

"Ensuring Ontarians' health care needs are met is of the utmost importance," says Dr. David Tannenbaum, Family Physician-in-Chief at the Ray D. Wolfe Department of Family Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital, and current president of the Ontario College of Family Physicians.  "Some of the key focuses in family practices are babies, to young children, to obese children, to adolescents seeking assistance with mental illness or addictions, to seniors who wish to live independently and longer.  Enhancing care in family practices is a step in the right direction for our province, and the investment in the primary care sector with a team-based approach ensures better delivery of multi-disciplinary preventive care and treatment."

According to an OCFP survey on primary care, the majority of Ontarians with one or more chronic illnesses are keen to have the majority of their care in their family doctor's office.  In fact, 64 per cent of Ontarians with a chronic illness wish they had access to other types of health care professionals in their family physician's practice too to help them manage their health more effectively (e.g., nurse practitioners, dietitians, social workers, etc.).  And the vast majority (89 per cent) support the government making it a priority that family physicians practice in teams with other health care professionals.

"Every Ontarian needs access to a family doctor - but our doctors also need the support of team-based care made up of nurses, pharmacists, social workers and more to ensure the consistent delivery of care," says Jan Kasperski, chief executive officer of the Ontario College of Family Physicians.  "Ontario's Action Plan for Health raises the bar in our primary care sector to provide the high quality care that is in the best interest of Ontarians."

About the OCFP

The Ontario College of Family Physicians is a provincial chapter of the College of Family Physicians of Canada and is a voluntary, not-for-profit association that promotes family medicine in Ontario through leadership, education and advocacy. The OCFP represents close to 8,400 family physicians providing care for remote, rural, suburban, urban and inner-city populations in Ontario. At the heart of the organization is the building and maintenance of high standards of practice and education and the continuous improvement of access to quality family practice services. For more information, visit the OCFP online at www.ocfp.on.ca

Between August 11, 2011 and August 18, 2011, Leger Marketing conducted a provincial online survey of 502 Ontarians 18 years of age or older with a chronic illness.  A probability sample of the same size would yield a margin of error of +/- 4.4%, 19 times out of 20.