On Tuesday, November 26, a lively co-design session was held with over thirty primary care providers from across the Mississauga Halton region. The purpose of this session was to 1) bring together a broad and diverse group from our Primary Care community, 2) clarify what type of organization we wanted to build, and 3) begin laying the foundation for a new Primary Care organization (where are we going, what will we do, who will be involved). There was representation from all sub-regions across Mississauga Halton, as well as all physician payment models.

To access the PDF materials from the session, please click on the following links:

• November 26 presentation
• "Backgrounder" handout

Our theme for the evening was “stronger together”, reflected in the animation previewed at the beginning of the session. This helped set the tone for a different kind of meeting, where there was a focus on co-design, small group activities, and discussion.

3 key takeaways

1. At this time of fast-paced health system reform in Ontario, we agreed that there is a critical need for Primary Care to organize and have a strong collective voice. We need to look beyond the immediate disruption and play a proactive leadership role to shape the future of Primary Care in our region.
   • The majority of people attending decided that the best way to have the strongest voice was a larger regional network, bringing together the entire Primary Care community from all sub-regions in Halton and Mississauga
   • People attending acknowledges that a larger regional network would have to co-exist with smaller groups of OHT-affiliated primary care providers that are being established to play a role in OHT governance and work with the OHTs on near-term implementation, as these new models of care are getting started
   • OHT update: Milton has an OHT application "in development" and both Connected Care Halton OHT and Mississauga OHT applications were approved in late November/early December; OHT start date is expected to be in Spring 2020
2. We identified how each of us wanted to be involved in this network going forward by selecting from four categories on a ballot card: 1) Leading, 2) Advising, 3) Engaging, and 4) Informed.
3. Through a series of co-design activities, we laid the groundwork for a vision, a mission, and set of values for the Mississauga Halton Primary Care Network. This work will be used as key inputs for meetings planned in December and January with those that wanted to be involved as "Leading".

Next steps

1. If you want to be part of the Mississauga Halton Primary Care Network but were not able to attend the November 26 meeting, it’s never too late to sign up! To sign up, you need to select your level of involvement by clicking on this link and completing the following 3-question survey. We have set a due date of January 31, 2020 for this particular survey so that you can get the most out of being involved at this early stage.
2. Over the next few weeks, those who stepped forward as “Leading” will continue to build out the work from the co-design session and create a draft strategy document for the renewed Mississauga Halton Primary Care Network.  Click here to view the December 18 meeting recap where we further refined the vision, mission, and values as foundational statements for our network.
3. A draft strategy document will then be shared for feedback at our next Community Meeting being held January 28, 2020, 6:00-8:30 PM. To register, please click on this Eventbrite link.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact Bonnie Scott at bonnie.scott@lhins.on.ca (the Mississauga Halton LHIN is providing interim administrative support).

What came before November 26, 2019

The November 26 co-design session was the third meeting this Fall involving our Primary Care community (first one held September 24 and second one held October 22) to explore if and how we, as primary care providers, wanted to organize and strengthen our collective voice at a time when there is much change and transformation happening in the Ontario health care system.

On September 24, we discussed the fast-paced health system reform, including Ontario Health Teams (OHTs) being introduced by the provincial government, and how Primary Care might be impacted (click here for OMA resources on OHTs). We decided there was a need for Primary Care in our region to organize and have a collective voice.

On October 22, we reviewed our “burning platform” – the why – behind organizing Primary Care right now, as well as examples of how Primary Care has already organized 1) in our region (previous Mississauga Halton Primary Care Network), 2) across Ontario (Hamilton Academy of Medicine, East Toronto Family Practice Network), 3) across Canada (Albert Primary Care Networks), and 4) outside Canada (UK Hackney Primary Care Federation). Click here for the October 22 presentation. We agreed to go forward with a renewed Mississauga Halton Primary Care Network, however the distinct value of this regional network compared to the emerging Primary Care groups with OHT-affiliated providers was not clear and needed to be revisited at the November 26 meeting.

Thank you for taking the time to be updated and informed as we embark on this journey to create a strong collective Primary Care voice in the Mississauga Halton region!