Frequently Asked Questions

Ontario’s health care system is complex, and many patients, families, caregivers, and providers find it confusing, inconvenient and challenging to navigate.

In particular, patients experience gaps in care as they transition from one provider to the next. They wait too long for care and find that they have to repeat their health history and fill out duplicate forms when moving from one level of care to the next.

The intent of the Ontario Health Team model is to create the right connections for patients and providers to deliver better, faster, more coordinated and patient-centred care.

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Health care providers and organizations eligible to become an Ontario Health Team include, but are not limited to those that provide:

• Primary care
• Secondary care
• Homecare
• Community support services
• Mental health and addictions services
• Health promotion and disease prevention services
• Rehabilitation and complex care
• Palliative care
• Residential care
• Short-term transitional care
• Long-term care home placement
• Emergency health services
• Laboratory and diagnostic services
• Midwifery services, and other social and community services and other services, as needed by the population.

The Government of Ontario, through the Ministry, is introducing a new model to integrate care delivery and funding, which will enable patients, families, communities, providers, and system leaders to better work together, innovate, and build on what is best in Ontario’s health care system.

The goal is to provide better, more connected care across the province. We call this new model of care Ontario Health Teams.

Ontarians should expect a health care system that:

• Is designed to ensure patients experience seamless transitions across different care providers and settings;
• Promotes the active involvement and participation of primary care providers throughout a person’s care journey;
• Takes care of a person’s complete physical and mental health needs, and not just one condition at a time;
• Encourages and enables healthy behaviours and activities, and self-care that promote physical and mental health and well-being;
• Is interconnected, so that patients don’t have to repeat their health history over and over again or take the same test multiple times for different providers;
• Is easy to access and provides navigation when patients, families, and caregivers have questions or need assistance;
• Provides the appropriate level of care in the appropriate setting, at the right time;
• Achieves better value by delivering better quality for the same or lower cost; and
• Is built on collaboration, partnership, trust, communication, and mutual respect between patients, families, caregivers, providers, and communities.

These are the hallmarks of a system that is connected.

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It is critical to emphasize that the new model will not interfere with patient’s choice of health care providers or disrupt the continuity of any patient’s care with their current health care providers.

The Patient Declaration of Values for Ontario articulates some of the fundamental principles and values that will guide the culture of Ontario Health Teams.

Ontarians will continue to access care from their existing care providers. As Ontario Health Teams are created, Ontarians will be provided with information about the benefits of this model.

Ontarians will still be able to choose who provides their care. As the province begins this work, Ontarians can continue to contact their health care providers for the health care they need.

Improvements in integrated care through Ontario Health Teams will fundamentally change how patients, families, and caregivers experience the health care system.

As Ontario Health Teams are formed—which will be an ongoing process over several years until provincial coverage is achieved—patients will be able to more easily access and navigate the system and be better supported as they transition from one health care provider or setting to another.

For each component of the model, Ontario Health Teams are expected to meet certain commitments and service delivery expectations for their population after their first year of operations through to maturity.

Patients of early Ontario Health Teams will begin to experience better coordinated, integrated health care that is easier to navigate.

For providers, Ontario Health Teams foster local collaboration and enables greater communication and coordination.

Providers will be supported to work as one coordinated team—focusing on patients and specific local needs, so people can more easily navigate the system and experience easy and coordinated transitions from one health care provider to another.

These teams will have the flexibility to redesign how they deliver care to meet the needs of their patients in the most effective way.

If you have questions about Ontario Health Teams or the Intake and Assessment process, please email ontariohealthteams@ontario.ca.