PTs Play an Important Role in Team-Based Primary Care 

OPA Presents at Health Workforce Canada Connects Conference 

Emily Stevenson, Director of Practice and Policy at OPA, spoke at the Health Workforce Canada Connects conference about the value physiotherapists bring to primary care teams. CPA CEO Krissy (Murphy) Bell moderated the workshop “From Silos to Synergy: Scalable, Sustainable Solutions for Team-Based Primary Care”. The session brought together an exceptional panel of leaders from across a diverse spectrum of professions, perspectives, and places in Canada to explore scalable and sustainable models for team-based primary care.

Physiotherapy Access in Primary Care Matters  

Emily Stevenson highlighted how critical it is that PTs are incorporated into health human resource planning as they are essential members of team-based primary care. Physiotherapists, when incorporated, increase access and attachment to primary care, as they can assess, diagnosis and treat conditions in their scope, which increases the capacity of family physicians and other team members. Physiotherapists need to be part of every primary care team to provide the right care, at the right time, by the right person. 

Roles for PTs in Primary Care 

We know that PTs in primary care:

• improve access to health services

• work collaboratively with other providers to build more capacity in primary care teams

• reduce emergency department visits

• lead to better outcomes for patients   

• and enhance continuity of care for patients.

In 2015, OPA was one of the strong advocates leading to the addition of PTs to Family Health Teams in Ontario.  

Visit OPA’s Primary Care Hub to stay up to date on all things primary care. 

The Impact on All Physiotherapists

Presenting at national interprofessional conferences allows OPA to demonstrate the value we bring to patients and health system partners. It provides us an opportunity to connect to other health care professionals, building relationships for increased collaboration and advocacy. Thank you to CPA’s CEO, Krissy Bell, for inviting OPA to participate in this important panel discussion. 

What is Health Workforce Canada? 

Health Workforce Canada is a new, independent organization established by an Interim Steering Committee, supported by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), and funded by Health Canada. It has been created in recognition of the need to bring together health workforce experts and those in the health care field to learn from each other and strengthen health workforce data and planning to help ensure health workers are there to provide the care people in Canada need. 

Thank you to the Health Workforce Canada | Effectif de la santé Canada team for bringing together such an engaged community of health systems leaders and workforce planners, and for continuing to create space for collaboration and innovation. 

Resource for PTs in Team-Based Primary Care 

The Competency Profile for Physiotherapists in Team-based Primary Care in Canada and Preparing Physiotherapists for Team-Based Primary Care educational module series were created by a team of experienced primary care physiotherapists, other interprofessional primary care team members, people with lived experience as patients, and primary care academic experts.