PCAC vacancy for administrator and more

Hi Everyone,

Hope you are all enjoying the warm weather. A few updates to share:

1. Primary Care Advisory Council (PCAC) Vacancy for Office Administrator

Congratulations to Nora Constas who has moved from her role as Executive Director of Markham FHT to CEO of Boost Child & Youth Advocacy Centre. Nora was a member of our PCAC from it's formation. With her departure, we have a vacancy on PCAC for an executive director or office administrator position. I have attached an application form, which is due by October 27th. The successful candidate will be selected by PCAC and serve out the remaining term until February 2022, as we will be running elections in the new year for PCAC.

2. MSH Assessment Centre

MSH is aware of the limited slots available for swab + physician assessment. If you patient needs more than just a swab (eg. checking the ear to r/o AOM), they can book a regular swab-only appointment and ask for the physician assessment when they arrive at the assessment centre.

3. Expert Panel on Guidelines for Clinically Appropriate Use of Virtual Care

Dr. Saccha Bhatia and Dr. David Kaplan are looking to identify Primary Care Providers who would be willing to sit on an Expert Panel to advise the Population Health and Value-based Health System and Clinical Institutes and Quality Programs Portfolios in the development of ‘Guidelines for Clinically Appropriate Use of Virtual Care’ focusing initially on Primary Care. The time commitment is approximately 24 hours from November 2021 to March 2022. Compensation is provided on an hourly basis at a rate of $125/hr. Deadline for application is October 28, 2021. Details including the application procedures can be found in the attached ‘Call for EOI-PCP Expert Panel’.

4. OCFP COVID-19 Community of Practice for Family Physicians Webinar

Please join us for the 30th in our series 'Changing the way we work' on Friday, October 22nd at 8:00-9:00am. We’ll be discussing the different options available for COVID-19 testing, when to use them, and how they can be accessed by your office. We’ll hear directly from a family physician who has advocated for testing resources in her community and implemented different testing options as part of her practice. We’ll also discuss the challenging task of changing the minds of our patients who remain unvaccinated and learn from successful approaches used by the VaxFacts clinic in Scarborough. Register in advance for this webinar: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_zHwYlQjWTS2RVSwmKFVIJg

5. COVID Vaccine 3rd Doses

Please see the latest MOH update from October 7th: https://health.gov.on.ca/en/pro/programs/publichealth/coronavirus/docs/vaccine/COVID-19_vaccine_third_dose_recommendations.pdf. In Table 1 there is a list of immunosuppressant medications. If your patient is on any of those meds listed in that table, they do not require a letter for their 3rd dose, bringing a pill bottle will suffice. This was an excellent question that came up in our WhatsApp group, which brings me to my final update

6. Joining our WhatsApp Group

Those of you new to our OHT, we have an active WhatApp group of 50 local family physicians. Please email me if you would like to join.

That's all for now. Have a great weekend!

Em

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Dr. Emilie Lam MD CCFP(PC)Primary Care Lead, Eastern York Region North Durham Ontario Health TeamPhysician Lead, Evergreen Palliative Care Physicians