N.B. hopes to create more collaborative care units

A key pillar of New Brunswick’s push for primary care access is setting up collaborative practices where doctors are grouped with supporting healthcare professionals and admin staff to meet patient needs. But the idea is not a new one. In fact, the president of the New Brunswick Medical Society, Paula Keating, participated in a pilot project 14 years ago. We thought, oh, this is this is going to take off and everybody liked it. The Mayor Machine Family Health team was put together in 2010 and officially launched 2 years later. A working group report from 2011 had recommended that the program be expanded province wide. But before that could happen, the clinic lost funding and doctors returned to their solo practices. Certainly. Access, I think probably decreased a little bit. That wasn’t the first time the idea was recommended but not fully implemented. In 2003, a framework for community health centers was published, which were envisioned as collaborative care practices. The Green Caucus recently dug up the report from the legislative library. Unfortunately, it is all too often the case that in New Brunswick there is good work done to create a report to chart a path forward and then government after government leaves it on the shelf and doesn’t implement what is needed. The province is pushing on this year, spending 20 million to get 30 clinics off the ground. The health minister says to focus on providing admin support is what will make this attempt successful. Putting the resources behind those collaborative practices. I think will people will realize that that is the pathway forward in order to to solve some of those solutions. But the funding is far short Of the 70 million and 50 clinics the medical society asked for, Think about the benefit widespread across the province, how many people we can get off that patient connect list. And incorporated into family based healthcare.