NPLC Meeting Minutes – March 2019

NPLC Monthly Teleconference

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

10:30 am – 12:00

Conference Dial-in Info:

Dial-in numbers: 416-645-1179 or 1-888-289-4573 (toll free)

Access Code: 9482892#

Co-chairs: Leanna Lefebvre and Jen Clement

Agenda

1. Welcome, attendance and review of Agenda – 14 clinics in attendance

P= present, R=regrets, A=absent

• Approval of Minutes from February –to be added to portal.

• OMA requests and NPLCA response
• OMA has sent some clinics requests for information but after consultation with a lawyer, we have found that NPLCs are not obligated to respond for two reasons:
• the approach taken by the OMA to request the information in question is not in accordance with the FIPPA guidelines for obtaining personal information for research purposes
• the OMA is basing its request on FIPPA FOI requests however the definition of institutions under FIPPA does not capture private clinics such as NPLCs.
• Georgina NPLC spoke with the MOH about the requests and the request is to go through the MOH to get the information
•  The NPLCA and NPAO have drafted a letter to be sent in response to the request for information; each clinic who receives a request will draft a letter on their own letterhead and attach the NPLCA letter as well

• Expressions of Interest for Ontario Health Teams – Dawn & Claudia
• Change is coming
• Oversight agency has already formed their board, one risk is that there is no NP representation on this board
• Ontario Health Teams to be formed in communities – teams will be groups of providers (made up at least three organizations, one of which must be a primary care organization) interested in providing wrap around care for specific populations or target groups (ie/ frail elderly)
• Will be approximately 30-50 teams across the province with 550 -300,000 patients
• Some teams will be led by hospitals, other’s won’t; community will determine who is best leader for that area
• Expressions of Interest for new teams to be released by end of March
• EOI to be coming from the MOH, not the LHINs however LHINs have been sending out info on the teams so far, not MOH
• Applications will require a site visit and will be assigned a score to determine who is a successful candidate
• Some teams have offered to be pilot sites however they will still have to apply
• Intent is not to push change on organizations but don’t know what it will look like if organizations don’t want to be part of a team, may risk being lost to system if not involved
• Unsure if the MOH will force organizations that aren’t part of a team to join a team
• Next health care document to speak more to primary care; MOH has admitted that primary care is a very complex structure
• EOI will have more information, at this time unsure what it includes and if it will speak to having one board and leadership structure vs continuation of current structures
• Some chatter right now from the higher levels is that the ministry is not interested in disbanding what is working well
• NPAO and some NPs have been invited to high level meetings within the Ministry of Health on March 26^th – if any clinics have questions they would like to see addressed, please send them to Jennifer to collate and forward to Dawn

• Premier’s Council Engagement Sessions
• Sessions being held in areas where council members reside
• Sessions by invitation only, invitations not all sent out yet; hear that the LHINs are the ones organizing the sessions

• Potential Research Opportunity
• Dawn approached by Trillium who is interested in working with NPLCs to trial a patient app for self-reporting chronic disease symptoms  (app already in use for palliative care but want to expand into chronic disease)
• Patients would input their symptoms into the app which would then push the information to a platform and flag symptoms as green, yellow or red (red meaning patient needs to be seen urgently)
• ? increased workload for the NP; unknown but from what Dawn has heard, the work should not be intensive
• Privacy concerns;  Trillium has already started using for palliative patients so they can provide information
• Unsure how many NPLCs they want to move forward
• If interested in participating, send names to Dawn Tymianski

• Annual Operating Plan
• Date for release unknown yet
• Dawn spoke with Nadia S at MOH and discussed NPLC concerns about ongoing operating budget freeze (no clinic has seen an increase in operating budget since opening), Nadia said all the clinics have to do is ask for an increase (many have asked, no one has gotten increases)
• NPLCA will draft a letter asking MOH to asking them to reconsider operating budgets as well as changing to envelope funding agreements so we don’t have to always ask permission to move money from area to area

• NPLCA Conference Updates
• Conference being held June 3^rd & 4^th at the Holiday Inn Toronto (970 Dixon Road), ending by 2pm on the 4^th for those travelling
• Room rates of $149/night guaranteed until May 1^st
• For those that are arriving Sunday, please let organizing committee if you are interested in a group dinner that evening
• Monday night’s dinner will not be a dinner at the hotel like in previous years but rather a dinner at a local restaurant for anyone that is interested (cost to be covered by each NPLC, not the NPLCA)
• Cost for conference covered for NPLCA members, those not members will have to pay registration fee (amount will be confirmed soon)
• Guest speakers include NPAO, MOH (Nadia), chief nursing officer and will have breakout sessions for NP leads and Admin leads

• QIP Submissions
• Is there anything yet that we can all put on the plan to show our value? QIIMS working on this and reviewing their groups data but this won’t be available until at least next year
• Will continue working with QIIMS; PCAM study in progress but should have a mechanism in place to show where we are in terms of progress for various projects – suggest adding calendar showing timeline of projects to NPLCA portal
• What was the rationale for removing some indicators and adding palliative indicator? Sue T sits on panel and said HQO wants to ensure they are only focusing a few items; want to bring primary care into palliative care early on in the process so using the QIP to do so
• Same day/next day question – know that this is not truly indicative of how well clinics are doing for this indicator as it is a patient experience perspective; some clinics showing how well they are actually doing in the comment section

1. NPLCA Membership renewals
2. For NPLCs who wish to renew early with this year’s surplus, can do so (contact Marcela Killin) but check with your bookkeeper first as this will show up as a pre-paid asset

1. Cannabis Education Modules
2. Training available for NPs so that they can do their own cannabis prescribing
3. Training is done by Dr. Blake Pearson (Opioid strategy lead for the Erie St. Clair LHIN) through his company called Greenly Health
4. Contact for the training is: Jesse.courneyer@greenlymed.com

1. Additional items
2. Any word on R&R funding for 2019/2020? No not yet.
3. NPLCA strategic plan, is it done? Yes and available on the portal.

1. Adjournment at 11:55

Next meeting April 10^th 10:30-12:00.