Health committee  I'll take a first stab at this. I would say certainly in the short term something that could be addressed is what we're proposing in the primary care integration fund as an incentive for provinces and practices to move to team-based care. We know how to do team-based care. We

Health committee  I think rather than the term “efficiency”, what you're perhaps alluding to is the time per visit or the time per patient. Certainly that would increase in a team-based practice, and it should. Patients are more complex. It takes longer to sort out problems. We were just talking a

Health committee  Sure. I'll take a stab at that. The most essential component of building efficiencies into our system is moving to what the CFPC puts forward as a patient's medical home. That patient's medical home, that team-based care, will vary across the country based on community demands.

Health committee  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 traine

Health committee  Dr. Smart did an excellent job of detailing our vision and how we would like to practise. The benefits to patients are innumerable. Family physicians are trained in complexity care in a complex health system with complex diagnostic and treatment options. We want to be able to wo

Health committee  Yes. All I would say is that every province is doing it differently. That's why we need some unification around this. Certainly, some provinces are relying on fee-for-service billing data. I would emphasize on that point as well that a family physician is not a family physician

Health committee  Thanks for the question. I don't think we would be so prescriptive other than to say that it needs to be national in scope. It needs to be standardized. It needs to be shared data as well in order to inform health workforce planning into the future. As Mr. Guest said, there are

Health committee  To be honest, I don't have the answer to that, but I will make sure that I get back to you.

Health committee  There are a number of aspects to this. Again, as Dr. Smart mentioned, we have all heard of physicians who have trained abroad and now live in Canada. They are Canadian, but they're unable to enter practice. Increasing resources for the practice assessment bodies—the credential b

Health committee  I won't speak for the regulatory colleges themselves. Certainly, we know that doing these practice-ready assessments is a resource-intensive process, so I would assume more resources are required. Sorry, I can't be more specific.

Health committee  Thank you. Yes. I will expand on that. Dr. Smart, of course, mentioned that without resources we cannot move either provincially, federally or collaboratively. I just want to emphasize for the family physicians that we need the resourcing both for ourselves and for our patients

Health committee  Not currently.

Health committee  I think it would help in a number of ways, a few of which Dr. Smart touched on already. One of them is certainly around locum availability. We hear that from our members constantly, that current disparities in staffing across the country often leave them unable to take a break

Health committee  I think the entry into residency in different countries is significantly different and thus difficult to compare. I would certainly say, as you mentioned, that the number we're worried about is matching Canadian medical graduates into family medicine residencies in Canada. That's

Health committee  The administrative and paperwork burdens vary across the country. There are many examples to give. One is how our EMRs—electronic medical records—function across the country, the varied number we have and the different vendors. Integration between the EMRs would certainly help.