Nova Scotia multidisciplinary health teams a key to improving access: officials
HALIFAX — Nova Scotia health officials said Tuesday that they are making progress recruiting health professionals and in reducing the province's primary care wait list through an emphasis on collaborative care.
Dr. Aaron Smith, provincial medical executive director with the province's health authority, told the legislature's health committee that clinics with multidisciplinary teams attract doctors.
Within such settings doctors can work with teams that include nurses, nurse practitioners, social workers and mental health professionals among others.
Smith said that in the past year all of the 89 primary care physicians who came to work in the province were recruited into clinics featuring other health professionals.
'Candidates consistently express their desire to work within multidisciplinary team models that allows them to focus more on their patients,' he told the committee.
The committee was told there are currently 118 so-called health homes or collaborative-care clinics where health teams provide a range of care. However, officials couldn't say how many of the clinics will ultimately be needed to ensure primary care coverage for most Nova Scotians.
Colin Stevenson, chief of system performance and integration with the provincial Health Department, told reporters that the number of care teams would be increased based on geographical need and changes in population in order to connect patients to primary care.
'It will be a bit of a moving number,' Stevenson said. 'It's never going to be a static process -- we will always need to be dynamic.'
The health officials also credited the multidisciplinary teams with helping to reduce the patient wait list to about 91,400 in June, down from a peak of 160,000 people without primary care a year ago.
On Monday, health officials announced that three new health clinics in the Halifax area could eventually see the removal of more than 20,000 people from the province's need-a-family-practice registry. The goal was contingent on recruiting more professionals to staff the clinics, officials said.
NDP caucus chair Sue Leblanc told reporters Tuesday that the multidisciplinary clinics are important to ensuring more access to primary care when they are 'up and running.'
'We need a full-court press on opening these (clinics),' said Leblanc, who referenced the large numbers of people in the province who still lack primary care. She noted that it wasn't clear from the numbers provided to the committee on how many of the clinics are new.
According to government numbers issued later Tuesday, the province had opened 41 new health homes and strengthened services at 64 existing health facilities since August 2021.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 8, 2025.
By Keith Doucette
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