Erie Shores HealthCare is partnering with two local clinics to help patients who don’t have a family doctor get connected before they leave the hospital.
The partnership includes Essex County Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic (ECNPLC) and Windsor Essex Community Health Centre (weCHC).
Erie Shores' president and CEO, Kristin Kennedy, told AM800's The Shift with Patty Handysides that connecting patients with primary care will help reduce extra visits to the emergency department and re-admissions to hospital.
"We have confidence when our patients leave if they were not attached to a primary care provider that they are now, and that they will have follow up appointments in real time, fairly shortly after discharge from hospital or the emergency room as well," Kennedy said.
Kennedy said 15 per cent of those admitted to Erie Shores are without primary care.
"Again this helps avoidable hospital use, but it also gives patients some reassurance that they will have someone who will help support medication reconciliation, chronic disease management, and early issue identification of any diseases that they may have," she said.
Kennedy said those without primary care feel like they have limited options on where to go.
"An urgent care clinic, back to the emergency room, and you not want to put pressure on the system as a patient yourself, but really have nowhere else to turn. So this has been a great opportunity that these two partners in our community to be able to help support, and meet some of the objectives that the province has as well as ourselves caring for our communities," said Kennedy.
The partnership supports Ontario's Primary Care Action Plan to connect every person in the province to primary care by 2029.