By Matt Weingarden – The Lakeshore News Staff
The Province is partnering with Ontario Health to create a new Ontario Health Team in the Windsor-Essex region.
The move is a result of the Ontario government’s plan to end hallway health care and build an integrated health care system centered on the needs of patients.
The province will also provide up to $1.1 million to help the Windsor Essex Team to seamlessly integrate health care services for patients and support the region’s continued response to COVID-19.
“An Ontario Health Team serving Windsor-Essex is another big step forward in ensuring patients can seamlessly access the health care services they need,” said Christine Elliott, Deputy Premier and Minister of Health.
Working together, the Windsor Essex Ontario Health Team will break down barriers in patients’ health care journeys to ensure they receive better and faster care that meet their unique needs.
Patients will experience easier transitions from one provider to another with one patient record and one care plan being shared between their health care providers for a continuous patient story.
Another priority of the new team will also support the unique needs of underserved communities through the High Priority Communities Strategy, ensuring residents of these communities have equitable, culturally appropriate and safe access to preventative care, chronic disease management, and mental health and addictions services.
“The approval of our OHT is a strong endorsement for the tremendous teamwork and collaboration already underway,” said Claudia den Boer and Bruce Krauter, Co-Chairs, Windsor Essex OHT Steering Committee. “It will be serving our temporary foreign worker community, those living in high-risk vulnerable communities such as shelters or those struggling with mental health, substance use challenges and other advancing chronic conditions like COPD. We look forward to building on these successes and improving the integration of care focused on the wellbeing of the Windsor Essex community.”
The new Windsor Essex Ontario Health Team is composed of over 45 local health care programs and service providers.
With the addition of this new team, the province will have a total of 51 Ontario Health Teams, which cover 95 per cent of the province’s population.
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