By Cecilia Nasmith/Today’s Northumberland
Northumberland’s quest for a local Ontario Health Team passed another milestone Nov. 15, when the county welcomed representatives from the Ministry of Health for an in-person community site visit of the proposed Ontario Health Team of Northumberland location at the Community Health Centres of Northumberland in Port Hope.
This visit represents the final step in the local Ontario Health Team application process, which formally began eight months ago with the province’s call for interest.
Patient, caregiver and Alderville First Nation representatives joined with representatives from both county hospitals, primary-care providers, and representatives from community health centres, family health teams, long-term care, home and community care support services, Emergency Medical Services, hospice palliative care, housing and mental health for the three-hour presentation and discussion.
The first presentation was made by members of the OHT-N Collaborative Planning Committee detailing the key elements of the local application, the engagement strategies to date for developing the proposed Year 1 priority projects – creation of a Volunteer Peer Support initiative, a Community Paramedicine initiative and the establishment of Rural Outreach Clinics – as well as the background work completed to date.
Ministry of Health representatives then had the opportunity to pose questions based on the presentation and the full OHT-N application submitted Oct. 9. In addition to the OHT-N’s proposed priority projects, questions explored the extent of local primary care participation (in Northumberland this is now over 97%, believed to be among the highest for any OHT to date) along with barriers or enablers that could hinder or accelerate the local OHT model implementation, relationships and linkages with other OHTs, target population (in Year 1 and beyond) and patient/caregiver engagement.
In addition to Northumberland, 30 other communities were invited to complete the full OHT application. Site visits of those who submitted full applications have been occuring in recent weeks.
The Ministry of Health has advised that it expects to be announcing the first OHTs deemed ready to implement the Ontario Health Team model later this fall.
For more information on the OHT-N proposal and the Ontario Health Team model, please see the new OHT-N website (launched following the Northumberland site visit) at www.ohtnorthumberland.ca.
Author: Pete Fisher
Has been a photojournalist for over 30-years and have been honoured to win numerous awards for photography and writing over the years. Best selling author for the book Highway of Heroes - True Patriot Love
