Great to see our recent research featured on the front page of @TorontoStar today. It highlights the dramatic impact that not having a family doctor can have, particularly for patients with multiple chronic diseases, on their mortality risk, the level of ED and hospital use and the cost to the healthcare system. @tor thestar.com/news/gta/family-…

Looking forward to sharing Ontario's progress on Primary Care with colleagues across the border this evening. @PC4AA @janephilpott

Our new study published in #HAScholar @Health_Affairs highlights the importance of the work being done by @janephilpott and @ONThealth to ensure that all Ontarians have primary care. For patients with multiple chronic health conditions, not having a family doctor is a huge problem for them. It also has a major impact on our emergency departments, hospitals and the cost of our wider health care system. Everyone should have primary care and it is crucial to provide that care as quickly as possible to Ontarians with multiple chronic conditions. Our work in @RenfrewCounty continues to provide innovative solutions to these challenging problems. Thanks to @DrMichaelGreen1 @DrSarahJCook @tara_kiran and many others for supporting this work.

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

Our new research, published today in BMC Primary Care, details the substantial impact of unattachment (the lack of any formal enrollment with a primary care provider) on both individual patients and the healthcare system. bmcprimcare.biomedcentral.co… We can now define the disparities in healthcare utilization and costs in Ontario, based on comorbidities, attachment status and unattachment duration. Attached residents with low comorbidities had a median total annual healthcare cost of $287. Annual costs for long-term unattached individuals with high comorbidities rose to $8,177, a staggering 2849% increase. This research further highlights the importance of the work of @janephilpott and Ontario’s Primary Care Action Table, in ensuring that all Ontarians have attachment to a Primary Care Provider and access to a Primary Care team. More work from our team should be published very soon, highlighting the success of the ground breaking innovations in @RenfrewCounty, using a hybrid of in-person and virtual care options to attach residents to a family doctor and provide access to a local team of interdisciplinary health professionals. @SylviaJonesMPP @ONThealth @OntarioCollege

This report makes depressing reading for all Canadians. A high functioning primary care system needs a strong, dynamic, motivated cadre of family doctors. Family medicine is a vital medical specialty, fundamental to the health, wealth, productivity and wellbeing of our nation.

Integrated Virtual Care - the attachment arm of @RCVTAC, taps into unused capacity in the existing family doctor workforce. 18 have part-time IVC practices, so 6000 previously unattached residents of @RenfrewCounty now have a family doc + team based care. journals.lww.com/cjrm/fullte…

I used to think of sanitation as referring to keeping human and animal waste out of our contact. We are now awash with pesticides, plastics and pollutants. Health and well-being cannot exist alongside a polluted, toxic and unsanitary environment.

Strong connections with family, friends and community play a vital role in health and wellbeing. Loneliness is associated with higher rates of many mental health conditions, including depression and Alzheimer's disease. Health and well-being cannot exist alongside loneliness.

When I was growing up, I associated "malnutrition" with pictures of starving children in Africa. Now, the destructive impact of ultra-processed food alternatives is felt across the world. Health and well-being cannot exist alongside malnutrition.

I’ve practiced medicine in some of the poorest and wealthiest communities in three distinct parts of the world. I’ve learnt that better health and well-being comes from good nutrition, sanitation, clean water, strong family and community supports, and access to medical care.

Congratulations Kamila. Your work is inspiring and it is great news for primary care research in Ontario that you have been awarded this fellowship.