Share & Learn

Helping patients to access care

The University of Toronto’s Department of Family and Community Medicine’s 14 teaching sites collaborated to launch a joint patient experience survey in the spring of 2020. The survey included questions designed to understand timely access to care, perspectives on virtual care, patient engagement in care and more. Over the past two years the survey has been sent out to thousands of registered patients at each of our teaching sites. The results of these surveys helped us understand both areas of strength and opportunities for improvement. One common area of improvement that arose related to booking appointments and, more specifically, phone wait times. Survey findings to date are available via our webpage and publication.

Focused on learning and improving together, our team developed a multi-session series, 'Share & Learn: Helping patients to access care', exploring how different site teams have approached reducing wait times on the phone. For each session, two speakers review what interventions they have tried at their site, what happened, and what they learned. The information and experiences shared during these sessions were invaluable in learning from each other to improve timely access to primary care across the DFCM teaching sites.

Past Share & Learn sessions

Improving wait times on the phone (June 13, 2022)

Watch video recording

Presenters:

Southlake Regional Health Centre

  • Dr. Navsheer Gill, Newmarket, ON

Mount Sinai Hospital

  • Dr. Sakina Walji, Toronto, ON

Moderators:

Dr. Debbie Elman, Family Physician, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre & Dr. Erica Li, Family Physician, Michael Garron Hospital

Resources:

Improving wait times on the phone (May 17, 2022)

Watch video recording

Presenters:

Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre

  • Dr. Melissa Witty, Barrie, ON
  • Dr. Lynda Ekeh, Barrie, ON

St. Michael's Hospital

  • Dr. Noor Ramji, Toronto, ON
  • Mr. Mo Alhaj, Toronto, ON

Moderators:

Dr. Debbie Elman, Family Physician, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre & Dr. Erica Li, Family Physician, Michael Garron Hospital

Resources:

Improving wait times on the phone (May 2, 2022)

Watch video recording

Presenters:

Toronto East Health Network - Michael Garron Hospital, 

  • Dr. Blaise Clarkson, Toronto, ON

Trillium Health Partners - Credit Valley Hospital

  • Dr. Ali Damji, Mississauga, ON
  • Ms. Christina Enchev, Mississauga, ON

Moderators:

Dr. Debbie Elman, Family Physician, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre & Dr. Erica Li, Family Physician, Michael Garron Hospital

Resources: