Vitalité adds 6 more family health teams, while aiming to integrate all patients within 2 years

Vitalité Health Network says access to primary health care continues to improve after it signed agreements with six additional local family health teams in the last quarter.

These new teams, made up of family doctors, nurse practitioners and other health professionals in the greater Moncton, Grand Falls and Campbellton areas, brings the total number of teams operating across the network to 23, according to the quarterly report, presented at Tuesday's board meeting in Beresford.

"By delegating certain tasks and using shared electronic medical records, these teams are able to respond faster to minor emergencies and ensure co-ordinated follow‑up throughout the care pathway," the report, Rising above challenges, says.

Vitalité's "long-term objective" is for all of the patients it serves  — more than 284,000 people across 13 communities in New Brunswick —  to be served by one of these multidisciplinary teams, rather than by a single doctor, assistant CEO Patrick Parent told CBC News.

"Our goal is not to differentiate anymore between patients with a care provider or the old term of 'orphan patients,'" he said.

"Our goal is to take our entire population and attach them" to a team.

Depending on funding, Parent is "pretty confident" that will happen within 18 to 24 months, noting another five teams are already in the works in the Campbellton, Kent County and Saint-Quentin areas.

"We'll wait for what's going to happen in the next budget," he said. "We haven't stopped the dialogue, it's just we can't move forward with specifics."

Targets for appointments

The regional health authority has also set two targets for improving access to care — providing appointments within five days for non-urgent consultations, and within 48 hours for people with "minor emergencies," such as a fever or cut, who can't necessarily wait five days to be seen and might otherwise resort to vising an emergency department, he said.

Parent expects the six newest teams will be fully operational within six months, "hopefully sooner."

The number of patients each team will be able to accept will depend largely on the number of physicians involved, he said.

"But we're pretty confident with those six teams that we can probably add anywhere from 18,000 to 20,000 patients to begin with, and then likely higher than that shortly thereafter."

The 17 teams that are already active have integrated about 20,000 patients, bringing the total number of patients under their care to 115,375, said Parent.

In December, seven of those teams managed to offer regular appointments in less than five days, up from five in the previous quarter, while 13 teams were able to respond to minor emergencies in less than 48 hours, up from nine in the previous quarter.

Twelve teams were able to offer same-day appointments.

Recruitment results 'encouraging'

Vitalité has also had "encouraging" results recruiting health-care professionals, according to president and CEO Dr. France Desrosiers.

In 2024, 45 doctors joined the network, while 15 left, "marking a significant increase compared with the previous two years," the network said in a news release. 

The nursing sector saw a "marked improvement," with 307 new hires compared with 159 departures.

Overall, the network had a positive recruitment balance, with 645 new hires between December 2023 and November 2024, compared with 513 departures.

"These positive results reflect sustained efforts to meet medical staff needs, thanks to strategic planning that takes into account the specific features of each zone and priority specialities," the report says.

For example, for doctors, "a multitude of initiatives have been implemented to forge strong links with local and national learners, in collaboration with" medical schools.

Activities, such as networking events, mentoring, summer shadowing and research placements have helped attract and retain future physicians.

In addition, Vitalité has partnered with regional service commissions to hold special events and exploratory visits to highlight the assets of each region and facilitate the integration of physicians and their families.

Recruitment and hiring initiatives include:

• Faster mobilization of known potential candidates.
• Residential and community immigration and settlement support.
• Financial incentives.
• Improving the student employee experience.
• Improving access to recruitment information and data.
• Improving planning of recruitment events.