Marathon

On October 29th, 2008, the Marathon Family Health Team, working in partnership with Wilson Memorial General Hospital, became one of the first Family Health Teams in Northern Ontario to launch an Ontario Telemedicine Primary Care Network (OTN) site. In five months (November 2008-March 2009) 182 visits with OTN have been scheduled at the Family Health Team site.

There are many advantages to the community of having local OTN services available:

• Increased and more timely access to specialists and other clinicians for patient consultation and care
• Decreased need for patients to travel for consultations or follow ups. This saves time for patients, saves on travel and accommodation costs, and often saves time for family members who might otherwise had to travel as well.
• Enhanced linkages to providers from different disciplines and settings for improved collaboration and coordination of quality patient care. With the OTN site in the Clinic, family physicians may be better able to participate in consultation appointments.
• Better and more timely access to patient education, as well as professional and continuing education.

Locally, we were able to collaborate with Wilson Memorial General Hospital to help develop this service. Wilson Memorial will continue to see Chemotherapy and Cardiology patients at their OTN sites, while the Marathon Family Health Team will see all other types of appointments, such as, follow ups, specialist consults, pre-operative consults, dermatology referrals, etc.

At the time an appointment is made by OTN with a patient, the patient will be advised if they are to attend that appointment at the Clinic or at the Hospital. All scheduled bookings are coordinated by the on site OTN scheduling coordinator, and in most instances an RPN is in attendance throughout the visit with the specialist. The RPN staff are expected to act as mediators, advocators, translators, comforters and navigators during the OTN medical appointment and on behalf of the patient.

To-date, verbal feedback from clientele has been very positive; some appreciate not having to travel a long distance, especially in the winter months, while some have shown appreciation for the assistance of the RPN in the telemedicine room in terms of ensuring their health care questions and concerns have been addressed by the specialist whom they are meeting with.

If you would like more information about the Ontario Telehealth Network see the OTN web-site.