VHA Participates in Ontario Health Team Full Application Submissions

Earlier this year the Ministry of Health announced a plan to create Ontario Health Teams to organize and deliver health care in local communities with integrated services across health care providers. VHA Home HealthCare believes in the vision of integrated team-based care. We are pleased to be participating in multiple Ontario Health Team Full Application submissions across the province and look forward to joining our partners in other OHTs where we provide service to build better care experiences for clients, families and care providers. Below is further information about two of the Full Application submissions VHA is participating in.

You can read the North Toronto Ontario Health Team Full Application on the North Toronto Ontario Health Team website here.

And below is a message from the East Toronto Health Partners:

Dear partners, colleagues, care providers, clients and families in East Toronto,

Today, East Toronto Health Partners (ETHP) submitted our Full Application to become an Ontario Health Team for East Toronto.

We would like to thank all of you who have contributed so much time, energy, commitment and great ideas to the development of this proposal to help re-imagine a health care system for East Toronto that is easier for clients, patients, families and community members to navigate, that provides the support to stay well and receive the right care at the right time when needed, and that is also more satisfying for all of us who work within it.

ETHP’s Full Application builds on the priorities that were established in our self-assessment, borne out of planning sessions with a large number of agencies, programs and organizations that work with people accessing health and social services in East Toronto which included many of you. These initial areas of focus are:

• Seniors with Chronic Care Needs and Caregivers
• Youth Mental Health and Wellness
• Substance Use and Health

Broadly, ETHP’s shared vision to provide improved care to this population focuses around creating a one-team approach with patients, caregivers and providers; coordinating care tailored to local neighborhoods and scaling up our early successes; supporting the success of our new East Toronto Family Practice Network; streamlining access and navigation, enabled by digital and virtual care; and improving population health and health equity.

Over the last 6 months, ETHP has hosted a number of community engagement sessions to involve patients, caregivers and providers including many of you in helping us co-design the future of care for these priority populations and to put this vision into action. We have determined through these sessions that our work will be grounded in a neighbourhood approach, starting with the five “Neighbourhood Improvement Areas” as defined by the City of Toronto, and by scaling successful programs in East Toronto, such as Home2Day. We will enable our work through a simplified model for care transitions; integrated, neighbourhood-based care teams; Care Coordinators/Navigators aligned to neighbourhoods; transitioning existing LHIN staff to ETHP; and accessing regional supports. A further key focus to enable this work is our digital strategy to advance virtual care, access to health information, information sharing, and quality improvement.

ETHP is also very pleased to welcome our newest Anchor Partner, the East Toronto Family Practice Network (EasT-FPN) which was created to be the representative voice of the over 260 family physicians in East Toronto.

We have attached our Cover Letter to ETHP’s application to this email to provide you with further details, and you can read our Full Application here.

Please don’t hesitate to approach any of us if you have questions or concerns. We thank you all again for your involvement in the development of this proposal and we look forward to further engagement with all of you as we take the first steps together to put this plan into action.

Sent on behalf of the ETHP Leadership Team:

Anne Babcock, WoodGreen Community Services

Carol Annett, VHA Home HealthCare

Jennifer Bowman, Providence Healthcare (Unity Health Toronto)

Jason Altenberg, South Riverdale Community Health Centre

Sarah Downey, Michael Garron Hospital

Dr. Catherine Yu, East Toronto Family Practice Network