Feeling sick? If you're in P.E.I, you may soon be told to 'go home'

Got a sore knee, or high blood pressure? Go on home—to your medical home that is, or perhaps to your medical neighbourhood. That’s what the future of healthcare will look like, according to the Prince Edward Island government, which has plans to set up a new way to deliver primary healthcare to Islanders, including the more than 20,000 who are on a waitlist for a family doctor. “We can’t keep doing what we’ve been doing,” Dr. Kathie McNally, chief medical officer for Health P.E.I., told CBC News. “We have to change and we have to find better ways.” These better ways include the establishment of medical homes and neighbourhoods—healthcare teams that will include practitioners from various disciplines. Medical homes will be made up of physicians, nurse practitioners, counsellors, dietitians and social workers while medical neighbourhoods will also include other professionals, such as physiotherapists, pharmacists, occupational therapists. Read: New medical school set to open in Prince Edward Island The province has allocated $64 million over five years to set up five medical homes and neighbourhoods by March 2022. The new medical homes and neighbourhoods won’t be defined by an address, said Dr. McNally. A medical home, for instance, won’t necessarily have all professionals working in the same building. Instead medical homes and neighbourhoods could be multiple professionals in different locations working together as a team to serve the same group of patients. This model will give Islanders access to medical care that won’t always mean seeing a physician. A patient with a sore knee, for example, might be sent right away to a physiotherapist. In addition to making healthcare more efficient, the new model will help P.E.I. attract and retain more healthcare professionals through expanded scopes of practice that will be introduced as part of the province’s new strategy, said Dr. McNally. "This is something that our new physicians and our new health-care professionals want," she said. "They don't want to be practising by themselves and they really want that support." The long-term goal, said Dr. McNally, is to have primary healthcare professionals working in teams, and for every Islander to be attached to a medical home and neighbourhood. Read: P.E.I. brings back masks, introduces new testing for kids as COVID-19 cases rise

Feeling sick? If you're in P.E.I, you may soon be told to 'go home'

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