Health Clinic Manitoba offers comprehensive primary care that provides patients with a home base within the health system, while also serving as a point of contact with all other services. In addition, the clinic offers a range of support services such as patient advocacy, referrals and community outreach. The clinic is committed to providing a quality of service that ensures patient safety and wellbeing and to enhancing access to services in rural communities across the province.
A key challenge in implementing reforms in Canadian primary care is the reluctance of fee-for-service physicians to cede managerial control. Policymakers have sought to balance two conflicting imperatives: to promote the acceptability of PCR initiatives among physicians and, at the same time, to ensure that those initiatives actually improve patients’ access to care. In doing so, they have introduced numerous linked initiatives attempting to blend acceptability- and accountability-promoting Winnipeg vasectomy at men’s health clinic elements, including the Physician Integrated Network (2006-12), a voluntary enrolment strategy that sought to leverage the initiative’s resources by encouraging clinic participation (awareness/recognition, funding, or support) to enhance observable behaviour.
As a result of these initiatives, the number of patients enrolled in PCR initiatives has risen steadily since 2000, and, by the end of 2016, more than 64,000 unattached registrants had been matched to a primary care provider – accomplishing this within 30 days for over 80% of registrants – despite the absence of financial incentives to attach.
While many of these initiatives are successful in increasing PCR participation, they have failed to translate this increased participation into actual improvements in patient access and outcomes. This may reflect the limitations of many PCR initiatives on their ability to leverage the participation of physician-based organizations, particularly when these efforts are based on a volunteer, non-committal model.
Other barriers to improving patient access include the lack of a strong relationship between provincial/territorial governments and physicians, a fragmented delivery of health services, and insufficient resources, among others. The latter has been the focus of recent reforms, including the expansion of a program that pays GPs for patient-centered medical homes, as well as investments in new health centres and expanded walk-in clinics to reduce wait times for patients with chronic conditions.
In addition, the province has a range of strategies to help those with more complex health issues and needs, such as the Men’s Health Clinic Manitoba, which will open its doors in Winnipeg at the Seasons of Tuxedo later this month. The clinic will be staffed by urologists who are assistant professors in the University of Manitoba’s department of surgery and will offer men a variety of specialized health care services. The clinic will be the first of its kind in Canada and will serve as a model for similar health clinics across the country. The project has been funded by the federal government and the Manitoba Government. It is expected to cost more than $1.8 million. In addition to this, the project will require approximately $3 million in operating expenses over the next three years.