Grant: Planning Grants - PA: Community-based Primary Healthcare

The rising number of people with chronic health concerns poses significant challenges for our health care system. These challenges are greater in rural areas where overall health outcomes are poorer and access to services is often more difficult, and therefore underutilized. Considerable changes have been made by a group of physicians working in northern BC to improve patient management in northern BC communities by embedding best practices in primary care settings using effective measurement and Electronic Medical Records. These physicians have now partnered with the provincial Shared Care Committee to explore how to improve the 'shared care' of patients between primary, secondary and tertiary care. The BC Cancer Agency (BCCA) has identified the critical role that primary care plays in cancer survivor support. This initiative will examine how a tertiary care organization can work effectively with primary care to optimize patient care close to home. The goal of the initiative will be to build on existing primary care, share care and BCCA cancer survivorship initiatives to create a shared care survivorship model in northern BC. The symposium will be designed to ensure that the shared care model would be transferable to other chronic health concerns and in other service delivery areas. This initiative will bring together clinicians, administrators,researchers and survivors to provide insight into survivorship, primary health care, shared care, and innovation in rural health service delivery. Participants will share existing knowledge and activities to assist in crafting an approach to survivorship that is adaptable to other health concerns and that will increase access for patients in rural areas. The symposium will take place in the fall of 2011 in Prince George B.C. This symposium will bring together a multijurisdictional, trans-disciplinary team to determine research and practice priorities to be translated into a CBPHC Team Grant proposal.