We're on the record as saying that alternative payment models—specifically not running your own business in a fee-for-service practice—is where to go, and I would say a couple of things get in the way of that.
Family physicians are not trained to run a business. We're not trained to hire staff, manage staff, sign contracts and deal with remuneration. We don't want to be doing that. Unfortunately, that ends up, depending on the practice, being a significant portion of your day, when you could be focused on clinical care. It's contributing to burn-out, especially in our urban areas right now, with inflation and increasing commercial overhead costs, medical supply costs and everything else.
I think alternate payment models in a team-based practice are one way to make substantial change to get away from some of the areas that are in the way of providing best care.
The other one is our IT solutions, our electronic medical records software. If we were able to integrate those systems between referral centres, primary care clinics and even hospitals, it would save a huge amount of time for every team member and it would be a sustained win into the future.