NEWS RELEASE
BARRIE AND AREA ONTARIO HEALTH TEAM
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The Barrie and Area Ontario Health Team (OHT) has launched its website to help residents across the region access health and social care resources from one central online location.
The fully accessible site will help patients, clients, families and caregivers find the information they need in just a few clicks.
To access the site, visit baoht.ca. Key sections include Care Services where easy-to-navigate options like I Need a Care Provider or I Need Wellness and Community Support provide users with the right resources to find the information regarding their health quickly and easily.
Through its responsive and mobile-friendly design, the website offers simple navigation, delivering easy access to information and resources from local health and social care providers across the region.
“Our patients, clients, families and caregivers have access to countless resources online and it can feel overwhelming to try and navigate through all those websites and resources on your own,” says Dr. Chibuike Chizea, family physician and physician lead for the Barrie and Area OHT. “What the Barrie and Area OHT website has done is offer that virtual guidance in a way that helps our community navigate through the many services that are available locally. Not only that, it provides the opportunity to increase awareness about what our local OHT is and highlight the important connections and collaboration taking place within our region.”
Ontario Health Teams provide a new way of organizing and delivering care that is more connected to patients in their local communities. Under OHTs, health-care providers — including hospitals, doctors, and home and community care providers — work as one co-ordinated team, no matter where they provide care.
Currently, there are 54 Ontario Health Teams across the province. The Ministry of Health has invited an additional four teams of providers to submit full applications to become approved Ontario Health Teams. If approved, the province will have 58 OHTs, which will bring Ontario to full provincial coverage.
“Ontario Health Teams help support a collaborative partnership with health and social care providers that ensures the voice of our patients, families and caregivers is embedded in all planning and decision making,” says Donald Carty, patient adviser and co-chair of the Barrie and Area OHT. “This type of partnership is essential to helping us achieve our vision at the Barrie and Area OHT and is reflected in our website. It’s a way we can deliver a care system that echoes the practices, principles and values that patients, families and caregivers say are important to them.”
The Barrie and Area OHT includes many community health-care partners serving a diverse population throughout Barrie, Innisfil, Springwater, Oro-Medonte and Essa Township. Working together, the partners will strengthen trust and build capacity to enhance care for residents across our communities.
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