Adding Chesley and Durham physicians to the already established Brockton and Area Family Health Team would not only allow for the hiring of more allied health care professionals in the area, it would also make history.
Chesley and Durham doctors were invited earlier this year to be part of the Brockton Family Health Team. A business and operational plan was developed and submitted to the Ministry of Health for approval. That approval is expected by the end of June, and if received, it would be the first such amalgamation in the province of physicians and patients who are already part of a Family Health Network.
“A Family Health Team is a new approach to primary health care that brings together different health care providers to co-ordinate the highest possible quality of care for patients,” Roy Mullen, a member of the Brockton and Area Recruitment and Retention Committee told about 200 people attending a meeting in Chesley on June 12, organized to discuss the community’s health care needs. Mullen explained a Family Health Team approach not gives doctors with high patient numbers much-needed support, as well as complete use of electronic transfer of records, it also gives patients ready access to a number of primary health care professionals including nurse practitioners, dietitians, pharmacists and social workers.
Dr. Adam Winterton, a Chesley family physician for the past 20 years, acknowledged the Family Health Team approach, which has been operating successfully in Brockton for the past 18 months, “requires a different mindset” from patients who in the past have been accustomed to their family doctor providing all of their primary health care needs.
Winterton said the Family Health Team approach is especially good for what he described as “complex patients” - those who are battling more than one health condition or who take multiple medications.
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