Powerful evidence published today, demonstrating the success of Integrated Virtual Care (IVC), the attachment arm of
@rcvtac.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.…
"High levels of satisfaction, strong physician trust and a positive overall experience. These findings support the potential of models like IVC to address Family Physician shortages, particularly in rural areas."
Residents without primary care are formally attached to a family doctor who works remotely but is embedded in a local family health team. Patients then receive comprehensive, team based care through a hybrid of in-person and virtual care options. Hundreds of IVC patients completed detailed questionnaires, so that we could analyze their experiences. Since we did this work, IVC now enables over 6000 previously unattached residents of
@RenfrewCounty to have a family doctor and a primary care team.
Our team, supported by
@tara_kiran, Judy Belle Brown
@westernuFamMed @SavoirMontfort @UofODFM and many others, will soon be publishing further evidence of the success of the IVC approach, with papers on clinician and non-clinical staff experience, factors impacting physician choices to join IVC, and a major study evaluating the clinical and economic impact of IVC, using Ontario's population level health databases.
As
@SylviaJonesMPP and
@ONThealth legislate the commitment to all Ontarians being attached to a primary care team and
@janephilpott leads the work to deliver this, one of the main challenges (highlighted by
@OntariosDoctors) will continue to be supporting rural and northern communities who often struggle to recruit family doctors to physically relocate there.
I hope that the evidence behind IVC will support ground breaking innovations using hybrid approaches of in-person and virtual care. IVC has delivered the promise of primary care attachment to thousands of some Ontario's most vulnerable people and has the potential to do the same for thousands more.
@OntarioCollege @OCFP_President @donohueranch @PeterEmon1