FUNDING: Strengthening Primary Care in Northern, Rural and Remote Communities

Healthcare Excellence Canada is launching a new program to strengthen team-based primary care in northern, rural and remote communities. Apply by September 25, 2023 to help improve access to safe, including culturally safe, high-quality primary care in your community.

Strengthening Primary Care in Northern, Rural and Remote Communities (Strengthening Primary Care) is designed to help address these circumstances by bringing together primary care providers and organizations and supporting them to advance their unique improvement goals. Participants in this program will receive tailored support to implement or strengthen a promising practice to improve equitable access to safe, including culturally safe, high-quality team-based primary care closer to home. Strengthening Primary Care will support up to 20 teams across Canada.

This new program will help spread promising practices that are improving access to primary care in specific parts of the country and:

• Improve patient and provider experiences of care
• Make care safer, including more culturally safe
• Reduce avoidable emergency department visits

Benefits of participating

• Seed funding (up to approximately $50,000 per team)
• Virtual and in-person networking, coaching, and learning events to promote pan-Canadian, regional, and community-level sharing and collaborations
• Resources and capability-building supports
• Measurement and evaluation support
• Opportunities to guide and inform development of new resources to help strengthen team-based primary care

Program activities will run from November 2023 to September 2024.

Who should apply

We encourage groups that prioritize team-based primary care in northern, rural, and remote communities to apply. This includes but is not limited to:

• Primary care providers and clinics
• Community-based organizations
• Municipalities
• Regional health authorities
• Indigenous governments/organizations
• Provincial/territorial governments

Interested in joining the program, but need more information? Check out the recording of the informational webinar.

FUNDING: Physician Assistant Career Start Program

The application window for employers to apply for the 2023 Physician Assistant Career Start Program is now open.

Please be advised that the eligible Physician Assistant (PA) graduates from Ontario’s two PA education programs at McMaster University and the University of Toronto Consortium will be able to participate in the 2023 Physician Assistant Career Start Program.

The Physician Assistant Career Start Program matches 2023 graduates from Ontario’s Physician Assistant programs at McMaster University and the University of Toronto with positions in Ontario’s health care system so they can help care for patients.

The program provides grants to employers who are committed to integrating and financially supporting Physician Assistants within their organizations on a long-term basis.

Employment settings are various and include, but are not limited to, emergency departments, primary care and internal medicine.

T4 Health from Birth: Tots, Tykes, Tweens and Teens Conference 2023

Join the T4 Health from Birth: Tots, Tykes, Tweens and Teens Conference on November 10th, 2023, where they will bring together experts for yet another extraordinary event in neonatal and pediatric medicine. This year, they are collaborating with interprofessional colleagues from the newborn and paediatric intensive care units at Sunnybrook, Mt. Sinai, and SickKids. Together, they will explore a range of topics relevant in everyday practice, with vital updates and engaging discussions. 

Conference objectives:

• Enhance knowledge of best practice in the areas outlined below: 
• Oral feeding In high risk infants 
• Non invasive respiratory support and minimally invasive surfactant therapy
• Neurological evaluation of the newly born infant and decisions to cool 
• Hypoglycemia, Hemolytic Hyperbilirubinemia, Direct Hyperbilirubinemia
• Developmental care in community NICUs
• Supporting Families Experiencing Threatened or Imminent Previable Births in Community Settings  
• Management of acute respiratory emergencies
• Recognition and treatment of pediatric shock
• Influence decision making and management of both neonatal and paediatric critical and acute emergencies through reflection on case based scenarios and processes
• Foster a culture of inter-professional collaboration, learning, and professional development

Where: The Peter Gilgan Centre for Research and Learning, Toronto

When: November 10 (7:45 am- 6:30 pm ET)

Recap: Watch Webinar Recordings

• Child and Youth Mental Health: Parental Concerns about Children's Learning, Development and Mental Health
• Collaborative Pathways to Engage Healthcare Professionals in Addressing Refugee Child and Youth Mental Health
• Children's Mental Health: Research Messages for Informing Policy