Working with the team behind Southlake@home has put the importance of partnerships in even sharper relief. This home care program has attracted attention across the province because of its success integrating care for high need patients and reducing ALC days. It is fast becoming a model for other OHTs and hospitals exploring bundled community care opportunities.

Health Commons collaborated with Southlake to capture and share their recipe for success, with an easy to use Guide that captures the what, why, and how behind the team’s experiences in their first year of operation.

The Ministry of Health is using a methodology developed by Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) Scientists Dr. Therese Stukel and Dr. Rick Glazier, called Physician Networks (PhysNets) to attribute patients in Ontario to Ontario Health Teams (OHTs) based on natural utilization and referral patterns between primary and acute care. Until now, very few sociodemographic indicators have been reported on OHT attributed populations. Researchers at the MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions who lead the Ontario Community Health Profiles Partnership (OCHPP) have recently posted data looking at the income distribution among patients attributed to each PhysNet.

Want to get a better understanding of the health of the population you are serving? In this blog, we’re sharing some of our favourite resources to help you get started on population health assessment.  

OHTs will eventually be responsible for providing a full spectrum of health care services for their entire attributed populations, but they have also been asked to specify which population(s) they will focus on in Year 1 of OHT implementation. Learn more about the selected populations and how to start addressing their unique needs.

You may have heard the terms ‘physician network’ and ‘patient attribution’ being discussed by the Ministry of Health in the context of assigning patients to Ontario Health Teams (OHTs). You may be asking yourself, ‘what is that?’ and ‘what does it mean for me and my OHT?’

The term “population health” has become quite the buzzword in Ontario and I’ve seen many definitions floating around – but it doesn’t need to be so complicated. Population health is just that: the health of the population.