Ministry of Health – Primary Health Care Strategy
The MoH used the first part of the meeting to identify its goals and to make the following points regarding PCN policy:
- CHCs utilize a team based approach intended to provide faster response to patientneeds; get patients to the correct care provider in a timely fashion
- MoH intent is to be moving away from a physician-centric, fee for service model
- visits to health service providers are expected to last more than 15 minutes and toserve the patient’s entire needs; some visits could last as long as 45 minutes and thepatient could see more than one professional during their appointment
- Primary Care Network model will be the backbone of the reform of primary care with afull team of care providers
- PCNs will be rolled out in 5 communities over the next 12 months
- 70% of the PCNs will be established within 3 years
- the framework will include:• Urgent Care Centres
• Primary Medical Homes
• Health Authority CHCs
• community governed CHCs - Community Health Centres will focus on:
- the social determinants of health
- wrap-around care with follow up provided by an interdisciplinary team workcooperatively
- meeting the needs of vulnerable and hard to reach populations
- the MoH recognizes the flexibility of the CHC model
- the established CHC stakeholders in the province are unanimous in their support forincluding CHCs in the PCN framework
- the Ontario CHC model will be used as an example but the MoH wants to develop a“made in BC” model
- the urban model of care may not be well suited to a rural setting; “when you’ve seenone rural community, you’ve seen one rural community”
The BC Rural Health Network would like to thank the BC Ministry of Health for providing the opportunity to participate in the policy discussion on Community Health Centres.
To access the full report, click on Report on the Policy Discussion between the BC Rural Health Network and the BC Ministry of Health – June 21, 2018