Primary health care change coming to New Brunswick

Primary health care change in New Brunswick will be driven in part by the opinions and feedback received at the Primary Health Care Summit held in Fredericton this week. Premier David Alward spoke at the closing of the summit today. "Driving change in primary health care is the first step to a healthier New Brunswick and a strong, and efficient, health-care system," Alward said. "I am looking forward to moving forward with a stronger focus on primary health care to keep our system sustainable for future generations."

The summit was attended by experts from across Canada as well as stakeholders from across New Brunswick, including government policy and decision-makers, primary health care practitioners, health-care organizations, academics and community leaders. Discussions focused on successful models of care; opportunities and challenges with primary health care; and strategies within each of the four pillars of primary health care (access, teams, timely information and healthy living).Delegates agreed that access to primary health care needs to improve and that communities should have a voice in identifying their needs.Much discussion took place about a team-based approached to primary health care, the composition of these teams and how to encourage this approach inside New Brunswick's health-care system.Another key topic of conversation was the growing burden of chronic disease in the province and the ways that government, communities and health-care providers could work together to promote healthy living and better self-management of chronic illness.The use of information technology to link providers and monitor performance and outcomes was seen an important way to better co-ordinate patient care.In March, Health Minister Madeleine Dubé released a discussion paper, Improving Access and Delivery of Primary Health Care Services in New Brunswick, which made 12 recommendations to improve primary health care services.The paper was prepared by the Primary Health Care Steering Committee, which made recommendations with the goal of providing all New Brunswickers with access to a family practice team able to provide personalized, comprehensive and co-ordinated primary health-care services.As part of the provincial government's commitment to citizen engagement, New Brunswickers were encouraged to read and comment on the recommendations in the report. The Department of Health met with stakeholders to receive their feedback. The feedback gathered during the past months was discussed at the summit.The major themes of the summit will inform the committee's recommendations to the provincial government in early 2012.