The community-built "Claire Stewart Medical Centre" provides modern offices and treatment facilities for physicians directly across from the hospital, making it easy to cover the ER and see hospital inpatients. Another benefit for physicians is the opportunity to practice in a Family Health Team model under a funding agreement that includes payment through a hospital on call payment program as well as the Family Health Network funding model. Physicians have the ability to earn incentives, premiums and special payments in addition to their salaries for providing target services. For detailed information on compensation models please contact the Wellington Healthcare Alliance Recruiter at a.armstrong@nwhealthcare.ca

On our team, each physician provides care to their own roster of patients and provides care in the local hospital for these patients and non-rostered patients. The physicians cover each other for absences; rotate through the emergency department on-call schedule and provide clinical consultation as needed to the allied health professionals for all of the patients cared for by the team. The Mount Forest Family Health Team has six family physicians. Physicians joining the team have the option of working in the Claire Stewart Medical Clinic building with subsidized rent and shared staff costs or working in an independent office setting. Most of the allied health professionals on the team work out of the Claire Stewart Medical Clinic, located directly across the street from the hospital.

Working in a Family Health Team provides an opportunity for physicians to provide care as part of an interdisciplinary team. Our team includes nurse clinicians who focus on chronic disease management; nurse practitioners who care for their own patient caseloads in consultation with the physicians as needed; a clinical pharmacist who provides 1:1 medication reviews, smoking cessation counseling, asthma education and general pharmacy consultation; two mental health workers who provide individual, couple and family therapy; a dietitian who provides care to individuals and groups and administrative supports for the team as a whole. Please visit www.mountforestfht.com for further information.

Over the past three years, the team has created the following programs:

• Hypertension management – including a standing Blood Pressure Clinic
• Respiratory clinic
• Telephone triage
• Diabetes Education Network (with other area FHTs and local hospitals)
• Healthy You Weight Management
• Memory Screening and Evaluation
• Smoking Cessation
• Congestive Heart Failure Clinic