Patient Newsletter, Spring 2017

Family Health Team

We recently celebrated 10 years as a Family Health Team. We held a retreat to reflect on our clinics and the care we deliver.

Locations 

Bruyère Clinic, 75 Bruyère Street, Ottawa, K1N 5C8, Tel: 613-241-3344

Primrose Clinic,  35 Primrose Ave., Ottawa, K1R 0A1, Tel: 613-230-7788 

Patient Advisory Committee

Our Family Health Team is keen to have patient ideas and feedback about our health care programs and clinic functioning. If you would be interested in joining this committee, please contact the Executive Director, Debbie McGregor, at dmcgregor@bruyere.org or
613-562-6262, Ext. 1432

New Telephone System

Our telephone system was declared obsolete by our telephone provider so we changed to a new system. We added what we thought would be helpful messages as part of the answering system, but received feedback from patients that these messages were confusing. We have removed the messages and now have music playing while you wait. We will continue to tweak our answering protocol to improve it.

Thank you for your feedback.

Headlines

Preventive Care: the recommended schedules for PAP tests (to detect possible cervical cancer) Mammograms (to detect possible breast cancer) and Fecal Occult Blood Tests (to detect possible bowel cancer) are listed on our website. We highly recommend
these tests. Ask your physician or nurse practitioner about your recommended tests.

Patient survey: We have recently concluded our annual patient survey and we are reviewing patient feedback. We have made some
improvements to the phone system, to address some concerns about getting through to the clinic more easily. We are preparing information about neighborhood parking options as patients told us the problems they are having with parking (there are definitely not enough parking lots, but no more land either). We were happy to hear that our patients are successfully able to arrange for urgent appointments when they are sick. We were happy to receive positive feedback about our staff and physicians and the great care they provide.

Our teaching program

As an Academic Family Health Team affiliated with the University of Ottawa, we have learners joining us as part of the care team each
year. Each academic physician has a team of medical doctors (residents) who are with us for two years, gaining expertise in family medicine. We also have other students learning with us (medical, pharmacist, nurse practitioner, nurse, dietitian, social worker students). These learners form part of our team, and are always supervised by one of our staff. These learners go on to provide care in their own settings all over Canada. In 2016, the academic program was evaluated and received full accreditation. We are proud of our program and the excellent care these learners provide.

After Hours Care

The FHT provides after hours service whenever the clinics are closed. A physician on call is available to help with urgent medical care
24 hours per day. You can connect to this on-call service through the normal clinic phone number.

Links:

Bruyère website: /en/bruyere-family-medicine-centre

 Congratulations

To Dr. Doug Gruner (left) and Dr. Kevin Pottie (right), who were both honoured by the College of Family Physicians of Canada with
2016 Awards of Excellence for their work in preparing for the care of Syrian Refugees.

To nurses Julie Lalonde (left) and Betty Hickey (right) for Bruyère Continuing Care Awards of Excellence in leadership

and commitment to excellence in care respectively. 

To the refugee care team for the Bruyère Health Award of Excellence in teamwork

Quality update

The Family Health Team has a Quality Committee which meets every two weeks to look at ways of improving our care and organization. We review any complaints, accolades, data about wait times, policies, survey results and our Quality Improvement Plan for the year. In 2017, our plan will include:

• Increasing preventive care testing (Pap tests, Mammograms, Immunizations, Fecal tests)
• Working together with partner hospitals to make sure that we are advised about what happened to our patients when they were in hospital, including changes to medications
• Providing continuity of care so that patients are booked with the same team of physicians, learners and nurses each time they visit
• Encouraging our patients to contact us for non-emergencies rather than visit overworked hospital Emergency Departments.

Secure email portal: We have recently set up a secure email site, called Health Myself, where you can send email messages to your care team, and also receive reminders of upcoming appointments. Contact the clinic to give us your email address and receive your invitation to join the system.

What is secure messaging?

Secure messaging is an alternative to email that is much more effective at protecting your privacy. All messaging goes through the

portal to protect your sensitive health information. The only thing you would receive by email is notifications to let you know that you have a new portal message. You must always log in to the portal to view messages from the clinic or send messages to the clinic.

What types of messages are appropriate?
Portal messaging may be used for updating information such as address or phone number, requesting information about our services,
requesting requisitions that have been lost, sending documents or measurements that may be added to your medical chart, and non-urgent questions for your doctor or other health care provider. Note that your provider may suggest that you make an appointment to discuss requests or concerns you send via the portal.

The Health Myself Portal is offered to you at no cost. It allows you to receive some appointment reminders, as well as occasional health
promotion or health program information from the clinic. It allows you to securely message your provider and team with non-urgent matters. You can also provide us with feedback on how well we are meeting your needs.

Non-insured services

Some services provided by our doctors are not covered by OHIP or RAMQ. These might include things like cosmetic removal of skin tags or
blemishes, or a physical for a new job or insurance policy. A list of the fees payable is available at the clinic.

Prescription renewals

Please note that it is important that you make an appointment to renew your scripts before you run out. If you have other scripts
that will expire soon, renew those at the same time. And if you forget, and the script runs out, contact your pharmacy who can probably give you an emergency supply until you see your doctor or nurse practitioner (except for controlled substances).