Canada Needs a Unified Approach to Community-based Health Care

It’s becoming harder and harder to get timely, quality health care in Canada. Across the country, our regional health systems are under worsening strain from physician shortages, aging populations, and rising chronic disease rates. More than one in five Canadians — an estimated 6.5 million people — don’t have a regular primary care provider. Emergency departments are constantly overwhelmed and wait times for specialists are getting longer and longer.

At the root of this crisis is the severe lack of availability and disjointed delivery of medical services outside of hospitals.

A unified approach to community-based health care is needed to solve both sides of this problem.

The Burden on Medical Specialists

More services are needed at the community level to relieve pressure from hospitals and improve access to care. But community-based options are significantly limited across Canada, mainly due to the following factors discouraging doctors from opening their own practices:

• Financial Constraints — High costs associated with practice setup, including real estate, equipment, and staffing, especially in urban centres and underserved rural areas.

• An Onerous Operational Load — Complex administrative requirements, including licensing, billing, and regulatory compliance.

• Workforce Challenges — Difficulties recruiting and retaining clinic managers and support staff, as well as other qualified medical specialists.

Running a clinic is far too much work for doctors to handle on their own. Unlike hospitals, where they don’t have to worry about administrative operations and can simply focus on patient care, community-based practices come with too many other responsibilities.

Having to play a dual role of clinician and business owner is a burden that deters physicians and other medical specialists from starting their own practices, limiting the availability of healthcare services at the community level.

The Impact on Patients and Health Systems

Hospitals across Canada are struggling with skyrocketing patient volumes and a lack of resources. Community-based services are critical to alleviating this pressure but are currently far too limited in availability and poorly integrated with regional health system infrastructure.

When patients don’t have access to care outside hospitals, they resort to emergency departments and inpatient services, leading to overcrowding, longer wait times, and increased costs for regional health systems.

Patients and health systems also suffer increased costs and worse clinical outcomes when the coordination of care delivery between community-based services and hospitals is disjointed.

The Solution: A Unified Approach to Community-based Health Care

Ensuring that all Canadians have access to high-quality, timely care is possible with a more unified approach to community-based service delivery.

More medical specialists would provide services at the community level if they had support with operational challenges, such as high overhead costs, administrative burdens, and managing staff.

Meanwhile, better coordination between community-based medical practices and public health infrastructure would reduce inefficiencies and costs for patients and health systems.

Specialty Medical Partners was created to solve both sides of this problem: We offer a Canadian-led solution for unifying community-based care by collaborating with provincial health authorities to deliver services within the public system, while leveraging private infrastructure for faster capacity-building.

When medical practices join our partnership structure, they retain control over clinical decision-making at their individual sites, while gaining access to shared resources. As part of a group of like-minded practices working in alignment with public health stakeholders, they share in a mutually reinforcing relationship that benefits both their clinical and financial operations.

Our partnership model for community-based healthcare delivery provides:

• Financial Support and Stability — Flexible partnership options, making it possible for healthcare providers to access sufficient capital for delivering services outside hospitals while maintaining control over the management of patient care.

• Practice Management Assistance — Support with the operational demands of delivering healthcare services at the community level, in order to reduce the administrative burden on medical specialists, optimize the utilization of facilities, and improve the patient experience.

• Recruitment and Succession Planning — Incentives and strategies for attracting and maintaining qualified teams committed to the ongoing delivery of high-quality, community-based care.

By investing in long-term partnerships empowering medical specialist shareholders, we are building trust with our partner practices and the communities they serve. Together we are transforming Canada’s health system to provide everyone with access to high-quality, timely care over the long run.

Author: Michael Black, CEO, Specialty Medical Partners

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