OurCare

OurCare is a pan-Canadian project to gather input from the public on how to reform our primary healthcare. OurCare has three stages:

1. The National Research Survey

The survey was online from September 20th to October 25th, 2022.. More than 7,500 Canadians shared their perspectives and experience. Results from the survey will be posted on the project website, ourcare.ca.

2. Priorities Panels

We are planning for panels in multiple locations across Canada.

The Ontario Priorities Panel was composed of 36 randomly selected volunteers who either filled out the survey and indicated they would like to participate, or who filled in this form to indicate they would like to participate.

Members of the panel were chosen to broadly represent key demographics which affect health and access to primary care including age, race/ethnicity, income, geography, and gender.

Starting in November 2022, these Panelists learned more about primary care, in Canada, Ontario and in other jurisdictions.

They heard from a variety of experts about possible ways to reform our system, including examples from around the world. The Panel came together for a three-day in-person event in February, 2023, where they wrote consensus recommendations about how to improve our primary care system.

Their report was presented to the members of OurCare advisory groups that include representatives of government (federal and provincial) and professional associations. The report is available, in French and English, on this website.

Panels in Quebec, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, and Manitoba are all underway.

3. Community Roundtables

We are also planning on hosting smaller 1-day events to make sure that we hear from communities that are harder to reach through traditional engagement outreach and are underserved by our health care system.

These will be a mix of online and in-person events.

Primary care can go by a few different names, like family medicine, family practice, family doctor care, community medicine, community care, and general practice.

Primary care typically involves routine care, care for urgent but minor or common health problems, mental health care, maternity and child care, end-of-life care, and more. Primary care also focuses on health promotion and disease prevention with nutrition and exercise counselling. It is also an important source of chronic disease prevention and management.

Primary care providers include doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants. They often maintain long-term relationships with you and advise and treat you on a range of health-related issues.

Some primary care services can be provided as virtual care over email, telephone, text messaging and specific virtual health care platforms.

Places with good primary care tend to have health care systems that function more inexpensively and smoothly, because populations are healthier.

In recent years, several challenges have emerged or worsened in Canadian primary care.

• It is difficult for people without a family doctor to find one, particularly in rural and remote areas.

• As doctors retire in the coming years, and fewer medical students choose to specialize in family medicine, this situation will probably get worse.

• Virtual care is here to stay – but what are its biggest benefits and drawbacks?

• How far is too far to travel to a clinic?

• How long is too long to wait for an appointment?

These challenges all existed before the Covid-19 pandemic, and have only increased. There is broad agreement that we need changes to the health care system to make sure that all people living in Canada can access good primary care easily and equitably.

This project aims to make sure these changes are influenced by the people they most affect – your neighbours, your friends, your family, and you.

Conversations about improving primary care are already happening. The OurCare project is an attempt to bring more voices into these conversations.

Though the average person living in Canada may not be a primary care expert, they are an expert in their own experience of our primary care system. In order to make our primary care system more accessible, equitable and sustainable for all, everyday people living in Canada need to have a say.

OurCare’s many funders, advisors, and collaborators include government and health care bodies that are explicitly interested in the public’s perspective and opinions about the present and future of primary care in Canada.

The final report, which will include findings from the national research survey results and recommendations generated by the regional Priorities Panels and community roundtables, will be presented to an ever-growing list of interested primary care stakeholders and policymakers.

A better system is possible – but only if decision-makers can clearly hear the public demand for it.

This project is led by Dr. Tara Kiran, a leading Canadian primary care researcher based at MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, with the generous input and support of many collaborators, including Health Canada and Even the Odds.

The national research survey was designed by Vox Pop Labs.

The community round tables and Priority Panels are designed and hosted by MASS LBP.

Everybody is affected by primary care, and everybody should have a say in how that care is delivered. The more people who are involved, by taking the survey and by volunteering to potentially serve on a Priorities Panel, the better.

The ambition of this project is to capture the widest possible sample of opinions. That way, the primary healthcare system can serve people in the ways they most want and need.

• Volunteer for a Priorities Panel in your region: Sign up for the lottery draw to participate in one of the upcoming Priorities Panels. These panels will be comprised of 36 randomly selected, demographically representative members of the public. If you are interested in potentially joining 35 others in learning about primary care and developing recommendations on how to shape its future, please sign up!

• Sign up for our e-newsletter at the bottom of this page to receive periodic updates on the OurCare initiative.