Chair's Message – Bill 41 Legislation
The Ministry of Health and Long Term Care in Ontario has reintroduced the Patients First Legislation, now known as Bill 41. Interpretations of the effect of this legislation on primary care have been widely disparate.
The initial response of the Ontario Medical Association (OMA), is that Bill 41 gives the Minister of Health and the LHIN “unnecessary and sweeping powers,” suggesting that the Minister could now “audit, review, and investigate” your medical records.
I found that the Ontario College of Family Physicians (OCFP) provided a more reasoned response in their “Pulse on Family Medicine,” October 7 edition.
This document points out that the legislation will allow for regulations that facilitate sharing of information about family medicine practices that focus on practice transitions, such as opening and closing practices, retirements and extended leaves. This information would allow a LHIN or Sub-LHIN region to plan for access to primary care services and to better coordinate these. This can only be a good thing.
As for accessing patient records it seems like the LHIN could appoint investigators to access records in order to assess the quality of care provided by Health Service Providers, (not individual family physicians), including Family Health Teams and Community Health Centres. Patient privacy is protected by other legislation.
In contrast to the OMA claim that physicians were not consulted, this legislation was developed with consideration of in-depth reports on primary care such as the Price – Baker report and has been revised in response to many submissions from physicians and physician groups after the original introduction of Bill 210.
A key goal of the legislation is better coordination of primary care services at a local level and better access for patients. It behooves us all as family physicians to take advantage of local efforts to bring doctors together and to engage with LHIN planners and help design a system that will work for us all.
As always I welcome your input and feedback at stephen.wetmore@schulich.uwo.ca.
