AMA retreats on family clinics
Doctors’ group urges integration with care networks
The Alberta Medical Association, which initially criticized the Tory government’s 140 new family-care clinics as unplanned and unfocused, has come up with its own pitch about how the health centres should work.
The family clinics should be integrated where possible with the primary care networks already operating across much of the province, said association president Linda Slocombe, a Calgary family physician.
“If there are areas where primary care is not being delivered or is difficult to be delivered, then a standalone (family care) clinic funded by Alberta Health Services may make the most sense,” Slocombe said.
“In other areas where primary care is being provided already within a primary care network with a group of physicians, it might be the best solution is to integrate a family care clinic in the primary care network.”
The AMA is putting the final touches on a “discussion paper” on primary care in Alberta which outlines the association’s family-care clinic plan.
Roughly 75 per cent of Albertans are already enrolled in primary care networks, according to Alberta Health Services data.
Family doctors in PCN clinics work with an array of other health professionals, such as nurses, dietitians and pharmacists.
Right now, they’re paid based on the number of patients enrolled in their network at a rate of $50 per capita. If a new provincial physician contract is ratified, that amount is set to rise to to $62, the networks’ first funding boost since they were set up in 2003.
Health practitioners in the clinics are the “early adopters” of a collaborative approach to medicine offered by the family clinics, said Spruce Grove family physician Allan Bailey, a provincial PCN leads executive who helped craft the AMA’s discussion paper, set to be published next week.
“We’ve done everything basically that we can with the $50 per capita per year. We’ve got infrastructure sitting here that could benefit from more funding so we can have additional collaborative teams, other health-care providers, to give our patients better service,” he said.
Family-care clinics offer extended hours, along with a range of practitioners, such as social workers, mental health workers and nurses. They are intended to fill specific health-care niches in each community.
The government is still working on a plan for its $3.4-billion familycare clinic project, set to be rolled out over the next three years.
One of the first tasks will be working out what “core services” Albertans are seeking in their communities, said Health Minister Fred Horne. Then comes figuring out specific models.
Horne said the AMA’S primary care network suggestion “may make sense in some situations. Until you’ve really been clear at a core level (about) what you want to be able to provide to everybody in their own community, it’s difficult to jump to the particulars of how all the different models are going to work together.”
A range of health professionals will be included in discussions, the minister added.
Three pilot projects — in Calgary, Edmonton and Slave Lake — have been open since the beginning of april. The Calgary clinic has seen close to 2,000 patients since it opened in Forest Lawn’s East Calgary Health Centre, said Laurie Blahitka, AHS executive director of public health, primary care and chronic disease management.
Doctors, nurses, social workers and nurse practitioners have all been hired for the new clinic, with job postings out for dietitians and mental health workers, she said.
About 30 per cent of its patients are new to the health centre. The rest visited the old primary care network clinic that used to be open at the site.
Blahitka said she expects the number of patients to increase as the clinic gains more profile in the community.
The patients who come here, their ailments — whether physical, social or mental — and the type of health care professional they seek, are expected to provide data that could help shape the 140 new clinics. Slocombe said she hopes the evaluation of the pilot projects is thorough before Alberta moves forward with its new provincial family care clinic strategy.