Global Health Webinar: Connecting care and improving access for vulnerable populations
Date: Wed May 12, 2021
Time: 12:00 to 1:00 p.m.
Topic: Connecting care and improving access for vulnerable populations
Zoom link: https://mcgill.zoom.us/j/81299619692
Moderated by Dr. Marion Dove
Socioeconomic factors are known to be closely connected with good health. Primary care providers are uniquely positioned to holistically address these broader determinants of health by acting as a conduit between health and social services. In Canada, there is growing recognition that these linkages should be formalized within healthcare delivery to ensure high quality primary care.
This session will focus on two innovative models of primary care delivery.
Dr. Vania Jimenez will present the case of La Maison Bleue, a non-profit organization (NPO) that provides holistic health and social support to pregnant women and families living in situations of precarity. It does so by adopting a hybrid model that brings medical, psychosocial and educational services offered by the Côte-des-Neiges Family Medicine Group (FMG) and the CIUSS Centre-Ouest under the same roof as a NPO that ensures integrated, responsive and continuous care.
Dr. Kate Mulligan will discuss a research pilot as part of her previous work with the Alliance for Healthier Communities, which connected UK experts in social prescribing with community health centres across Ontario. The project aimed to bring sustainable service innovation to the front lines of primary health care through directed mentorship, evidence-informed implementation, local adaptation and partnership, and built-in evaluation. This work emphasizes key aspects of Ontario’s healthcare reform, which is moving towards the integration of social prescribing link workers as part of its primary care teams.
Dr. Vania Jimenez will present the case of La Maison Bleue, a non-profit organization that combines the strengths of the health and social services network, represented by the Côte-des-Neiges Family Medicine Group (FMG) and the Integrated Health and Social Services University Network for West-Central Montreal (West-Central Montreal Health), and those of an independent non-profit organization (NPO) rooted in the community and closely tied to community partners. This atypical model provides a continuum of free public services to families and to marginalized and isolated communities.
Dr. Kate Mulligan will discuss a research pilot as part of her previous work with the Alliance for Healthier Communities, which connected UK experts in social prescribing with community health centres across Ontario. The project aimed to bring sustainable service innovation to the front lines of primary health care through directed mentorship, evidence-informed implementation, local adaptation and partnership, and built-in evaluation. This work emphasizes key aspects of Ontario’s healthcare reform, which is moving towards the integration of social prescribing link workers as part of its primary care teams.
Speaker Biographies
Dr. Vania Jimenez MD is a researcher, clinician, obstetrician, psychotherapist and family physician practising in Montreal. In 1999, she was named the Canadian Family Physician of the Year by the College of Family Physicians of Canada. She is currently head of the Family Medicine Unit and head of Medical Services at CSSS Côte-des-Neiges in Montreal. Since 2006, she has served as president of La Maison Bleue, a non-profit organization staffed by family physicians who work in a multidisciplinary team to serve economically vulnerable families.
Dr. Kate Mulligan PhD is an assistant professor of social and behavioural sciences at U of T’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health. Mulligan previously served as Director of Policy and Communications at the Alliance for Healthier Communities, a network of community-governed primary health-care organizations. The network integrates prescriptions for social connection into existing health care and community services, which conducted Canada’s first social prescribing research pilot in 2018 dubbed Rx: Community.