Collaborative Primary Care

We have begun co-facilitating two Trans Health groups with London InterCommunity Health Centre – Families in TRANSition and Gender Journeys:

• The Families in Transition groups support families to strengthen and bolster relationships between youth and the significant adults around them, particularly in times of identity exploration and gender transition.
• The Gender Journeys group provides a safe space to explore questions of gender identity and belonging. This group is primarily for individuals age 16+ in the beginning stages of transition, which includes those just thinking about transition and those who may have already taken early steps towards their transition, as well as those who are gender-questioning.

We have also hosted “Let’s Talk About Driving” with Alzheimer Society Southwest Partners. This group provided free education for older adults, people living with MCI or dementia and their family and friends about the driving and dementia journey.

• Partnering with London InterCommunity Health Centre to learn how to best provide primary care support for people without access to a family physician who also may be experiencing homelessness.
• Transgender Persons Care: We have been working with Ingersoll Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic since 2022 to support patients one-on-one with transition care support, including hormones and surgeries.

• Patients of St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital’s Outpatient Mental Health, West Elgin CHC, London FHT, London InterCommunity Health Centre have access to free mental health groups run by TVFHT. These include Introduction to Mindfulness, Living Mindfully, and Mind Over Mood.
• We’re partnering with clinicians at London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) to support unattached patients who are currently accessing the psychiatry services at the hospital.
• We’re partnering with psychiatrists at St. Joseph’s Health Care London & LHSC to work with our team onsite, as well as the Mental Health and Addictions Care Manager, to better support our patients.
• We are working with Ontario Structured Psychotherapy Program and Canadian Mental Health Association to improve the pathway to receiving mental health care.

• Our pharmacists provide academic detailing – or free, virtual, 1-on-1 education discussions – to our affiliated physicians as well as London FHT, LIHC, and Oxford County CHC.
• Pharmacists provide education for community partners as requested.
• Recently our Pharmacy team has opened up their drug information newsletter, The Dose, to more community physicians, specialists, and primary care organizations.
• Our pharmacists also support community partners with their drug information services inbox. The team monitors a shared inbox that partners can email with questions.

• Western University health students proactively contacted patients who were overdue for colorectal, breast cancer, and cervical cancer screenings. This resulted in a majority of patients contacted coming in for a test. In fact, patients who had previously declined testing agreed to come in after speaking with a student. Testing also screened for, and detected, STIs, an important part of preventative healthcare.
• In partnership with Oxford Ontario Health Team and Norwich Medical Centre, one of our Nurse Practitioners provided cervical cancer screening clinics in Norwich. These clinics were targeted at screening patients overdue for a check. Over the 7 clinics that ran between February and May, 2024, 85 patients received cervical cancer screening services.

We are pleased to provide back-office support to our partners to help advance collaborative care and build a robust healthcare system. We are currently supporting the following partners with various administrative supports:

• • Elgin Ontario Health Team
  • Elmwood Family Health Organization
  • HealthZone Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic
  • London Family Health Team
  • Middlesex London Ontario Health Team
  • Parkhill Medical Clinic
  • South West Self-Management
  • Strathroy Caradoc Family Health Organization