No simple fix for family doctor shortage

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – It has been three years since the provincial government promised a family doctor for every British Columbian, but the “A GP for Me” initiative is still far short of its goal.

So why is it still a struggle for so many people to find easy access to primary medical care?

“I don’t think people understand the real complexity of the problem,” says Dr. Terrence Chang, the head of the Vancouver Division of Family Practice, which has contributed to the government initiative.

“Simply adding more doctors [isn’t the solution]. Not everyone is going to work in a family practice office. Doctors are finding new ways of working — not only in a family practice but also within the health authority, where they have other places to work that take them out of providing continuous, ongoing care,” he tells NEWS 1130.

Chang suggests that lack of continuous care is causing problems for both patients and the health care system.

“We know that when you have one family doctor, you are going to get more consistent care and more cost effective care,” he says.

Chang asserts that the more complex the health care problem is, the greater the risk of having too many doctors trying to treat a patient with none having a good handle on what the patient is experiencing.

“That’s when you get into a lot of unecessary tests and consultations with specialists. It really doesn’t help us have a more lean efficient, cost effective medical care system.”

The Vancouver Division of Family Practice developed a team and set of resources help more people get access to family doctors.

Over the past 18 months, its approach has included providing in-office support to improve efficiencies, processes to plan a retirement or join a practice, and options to help patients be matched to family doctors.

The organization claims to have freed up space for thousands of new patients in Vancouver, reallocated thousands more, and recruited new doctors. But Chang says new models are needed to increase access to health care.

“As we move forward, we are trying to build a system where a family physician and a cohort of health care providers can give a more broad delivery of care to a patient,” he explains.

“We are looking at trying to link groups of family physicians together to work as a unit. We are looking at how we can use nurses or other allied health professionals to provide some of the more basic care to free up time for the physician to see the more complex cases.”

Chang says the goal is still to find a family doctor for everyone who wants one, but even more importantly to treat the patients who are most in need with the most consistent care.