Integrated care can help improve access and ease pressures on emergency departments. This is especially important given that 38 percent of Canadians report that they went to the emergency department because they could not access care elsewhere.
Teams across Canada are taking bold steps to reimagine how care is delivered: breaking down silos, coordinating across sectors, and working with patients and communities to put their needs at the centre.
This is integrated team-based care: a collaborative approach that helps bolster social and healthcare systems. Professionals across disciplines work together to provide coordinated, patient-centered care, ensuring they receive the right care at the right time.
What is Enhancing Integrated Care?
To support this momentum, HEC is launching offerings like Enhancing Integrated Care to support up to 100 primary and community care organizations to strengthen integrated team-based care models, including virtual care, making access easier and reducing pressure on the healthcare system as a whole, including on emergency departments.
This work builds on the success of past HEC initiatives helping organizations across the country to design and deliver integrated care—real, impactful initiatives that show what’s possible when the right support is in place.
Connecting patients to timely, team-based care (Carbonear Impact Clinic)
In Carbonear, Newfoundland and Labrador, a small town faced with growing numbers of people without a family doctor launched a bold solution: a pop-up primary care clinic. The Carbonear Impact Clinic connected hundreds of patients with timely, team-based care and directly reduced avoidable emergency department visits.
What began as a short-term intervention quickly became a scalable, community-driven model of integrated care. It proved that when care is designed around local needs, it can fill critical gaps and ease pressure on overstretched systems.
Helping rural providers access specialists (Connected Medicine)
In rural and remote regions across the country, geography often limits access to specialist care. Through Connected Medicine collaborative, teams turned to virtual tools to bridge that gap. With RACE (real-time consults) and BASE (eConsults), primary care providers can connect with specialists quickly, often resolving issues without needing in-person referrals.
These solutions changed how providers work together: more than 2,200 primary care providers participated in a remote consult service and continue to benefit from it. The result: faster decision-making, shorter wait times, and better outcomes for patients, no matter where they live.
Delivering team-based care for people without a family doctor (The Annex)
In northern Ontario, the Algonquin Family Health Team, in partnership with NOSM University, came together to create The Annex, a nurse practitioner-led clinic located in the local library. Designed for people without a regular provider, The Annex connects patients with timely, comprehensive, team-based care and follow-up after hospital discharge, helping to prevent avoidable emergency visits and readmissions.
The Annex helped 75 percent of its patients avoid going to the emergency department. It’s a powerful example of how local collaboration and flexible models can improve access, provider satisfaction, and outcomes - all while meeting people where they are.
Supporting diabetes remission with culturally safe, team-based care (Type 2 Diabetes Remission Program)
In British Columbia, the Rural Coordination Centre of BC is working with the communities of Tumbler Ridge and Port Alberni on the Type 2 Diabetes Remission Program. They’ve shown how integrated care can manage chronic illness, and help reverse it. Focused on rural and First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities, the program takes a team-based, culturally safe approach that empowers patients to take control of their health.
More than 200 healthcare providers have been trained to assist patients on their remission journey, and community pharmacies now offer point-of-care diabetes testing, improving accessibility. Through long-term relationships, consistent support, and community leadership, patients are seeing better health outcomes, and renewed trust in a system that reflects their values and realities.
Join us to build on what works
Integrated care takes shape in many ways: from mental health and home care to specialist access and palliative services—in clinics, hospitals, remote regions, and through the leadership of First Nations, Inuit and Métis health organizations. The stories above show that the right support can drive real change.
Enhancing Integrated Care is here to support what’s already working, and help take it further. It’s open to a wide variety of teams: regional health authorities, governments, primary care providers, and First Nations, Inuit and Métis organizations working to improve care in their communities.
Are you ready to strengthen team-based primary care models, including virtual care, to provide more coordinated, patient-centered care?
- Enroll in Enhancing Integrated Care. Applications are open from May 12 to June 19, 2025. The offering begins in July 2025. Learn more and apply.
- Learn more about the programs featured in this blog. Explore how past Healthcare Excellence Canada initiatives have helped build momentum for integrated, team-based care: Carbonear Impact Clinic, Connected Medicine (RACE and BASE), The Annex, Type 2 Diabetes Remission Program.
