Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

As baby boomers grow older and live longer, the burden of chronic illness is putting increasing strain on Québec and Canada's health infrastructure. Recently, the Québec government has reorganized health services into Family Medicine Groups (FMGs), through which patients - particularly those with high disease burdens - can access comprehensive and continuous healthcare. A core tenant of these FMGs is Case Management (CM), a collaborative process of assessment, planning, facilitation, care coordination, evaluation and advocacy for options and services to meet an individual's and family's comprehensive healthcare needs (Case Management Society of America). Case management works, but only when implemented properly. This implementation has largely failed in Québec. Accordingly, my project aims to understand how FMG health professionals perceive case management. This study will be conducted by interviewing FMG healthcare professionals with questions that allow for their perceptions of case management - positive and negative - to be recorded. Understanding what healthcare providers think about case management - particularly why they don't embrace it - will help us identify potential barriers, successes and limitations to CM implementation. Ultimately, this study will help to develop strategies that will encourage FMGs to adopt the CM paradigm, leading to the provision of improved care to all patients, especially those burdened with chronic disease.