Putting People at the Centre of Primary Health Care
Message from the Chair
This has been a year of opportunities and challenges for the Alliance for Healthier Communities and Alliance members. We finally saw primary health care get the attention it deserves. We welcomed new investments in interprofessional primary care teams and the establishment of the Primary Care Action Team.
Unfortunately, this year also brought the closure of several Consumption and Treatment Service sites amidst a changing substance use health and harm reduction landscape in Ontario. We witnessed increased attacks on equity, diversity and inclusion south of the border having ripple effects in Canada and world events impacting communities close to home. Through successes and challenges, Alliance members continued to demonstrate leadership, nimbleness and courage, constantly working to address the needs of the people and communities they serve while advancing broader system change toward a more accessible and equitable health care in Ontario.
We, at the Alliance, recognize your commitment as well as the challenges you are facing, including the ongoing health human resources crisis. Over the past year, we have been working to provide the necessary tools and resources to help members navigate the evolving healthcare environment.
Over the past year, the Alliance has also engaged with policy- and decision-makers to influence the primary care expansion and share stories of Alliance members’ contributions to the health system through government relations, research, and targeted advocacy campaigns.
We held another successful The Future of Primary Health Care Day at Queen’s Park and engaged with the newly formed Primary Care Action Team (PCAT) along with our Primary Care Collaborative (PCC) partners. Health human resources continued to be at the centre of our work. Together with nine other provincial associations, we launched the For Us. For You. Campaign to raise awareness about the wage gap in the community health sector and call for investments to support the sector’s capacity to recruit and retain staff.
As I wrap up my time on the Alliance Board, I want to express my gratitude to members of the Alliance, its Board and staff. It’s been an honour to serve on the Board for the past five years, two of them as the Chair, and witness firsthand your outstanding commitment to health equity, your innovative spirit, and your inspiring, life-changing work!
Positioning Primary Health Care as the Foundation of an Integrated Health System
The Future of Primary Health Care Day at Queen’s Park
On November 26, the Alliance, together with members, hosted The Future of Primary Health Care Day at Queen’s Park. We welcomed more than 30 MPPs from the Progressive Conservative, NDP and Liberal parties as well as independents at the luncheon reception. In the afternoon, Alliance staff and members held meetings with MPPs. Throughout the day, we shared stories of Alliance members’ many contributions to primary health care. We also talked about the challenges related to the health care workers’ compensation and the need to invest in the sector.
Primary Care Collaborative Leads the Work to Expand and Strengthen Primary Health Care
The Alliance continued to work with the Primary Care Collaborative (PCC) to advance primary health care as the foundation of an integrated health system. Together with the Indigenous Primary Health Care Council, the Association of Family Health Teams of Ontario, the Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic Association, the OMA’s Section on General and Family Practice, and the Ontario College of Family Physicians, we collaborated on several joint submissions and projects, including:
• In April 2024, the Primary Care Collaborative provided feedback on the proposed new regulations under the Connecting Care Act, 2019, to inform the development of the requirements for Ontario Health Team (OHT) designation.
• On July 5, 2024, the PCC authored a letter addressed to Deputy Premier and Minister of Health Sylvia Jones. The letter outlined six recommendations for a sustainable and equitable approach to strengthening primary care and improving access to team-based care through the $546 million investment in new and expanded primary care teams.
• The Primary Care Collaborative met regularly with the Primary Care Action Team (PCAT) to provide input on how members can support PCAT’s mandate of attaching 100% of people in Ontario to primary care.
Influencing the Interprofessional Primary Care Teams (IPCT) Expansion
Last year, we saw new investments in interprofessional primary care to support new and existing teams to connect more people to team-based care. The Alliance has been working to influence the IPCT expansion and ensure it is grounded in health equity. We have supported members’ participation in the process through the IPCT community of practice and online IPCT Expansion Toolkit The Alliance is also a key member of the evaluation team for two important primary care studies being commissioned by Ontario Health and the Ministry of Health.
Advocacy to Close the Wage Gap in Community Health
Over the last year, the Alliance for Healthier Communities has been working with nine other provincial associations to advance our collective advocacy efforts to close the wage gap between the community health sector and other areas of Ontario’s health system.
In October 2024, the ten associations launched the For Us. For You. campaign to raise awareness about the wage gap and its impacts, as well as call for additional investments to close it. An advocacy toolkit, along with a petition, was developed and shared with members of all association.
• On December 5, 2024, the CEOs and members from each of the ten provincial associations held a For Us. For You. Advocacy Day at Queen’s Park. They attended meetings with key Ministers, ministerial staff, and MPPs to raise awareness of the community health sector’s impact on the health system and the wage gap adversely affecting the sector’s ability to recruit and retain staff.
• In December 2024, the Alliance worked with other members of the Primary Care Collaborative on a joint pre-budget submission. The submission called for additional investments in primary care to close the wage gap and to provide retroactive payments for Bill 124 to health care workers employed in the primary care sector.
Advancing Health Equity in Ontario’s Health System
Black Health
The Alliance continued to support the Black Health Committee in its work to advance health equity for African, Caribbean, and Black (ACB) communities across Ontario. The Committee saw significant progress and expanded its impact in the past year. The work of the Black Health Committee was profiled in the Alliance’s Black History Month statement. Key successes include:
• Implementation of the Preventative Health Focus (PHF) initiative that aims to address chronic health conditions prevalent within the ACB communities;
• Strengthening partnerships with key stakeholders, like the Heart and Stroke Foundation and Ontario Health, to advance significant policy discussions and collaborations to further systemic changes in Black health;
• Successful engagement and rollout of the Black Health Committee Execution Plan, and implementation of race-based data collection tools.
Rural, Remote and Northern Communities
• On June 4, 2024, the Alliance hosted its first Rural, Remote, and Northern (RRN) Symposium. The Symposium brought together a diverse group of executive leaders, front-line staff, and board members from various regions of rural Ontario to explore ways to improve and increase equitable access to communitybased, integrated, interprofessional primary health care in rural, remote and Northern communities.
• In November 2024, the Alliance released the Proven Practices to Improve Access to Primary Care in Ontario’s Rural, Remote, and Northern Communities report. The report spotlights the innovative, creative and bold work of 50+ Alliance members that serve rural, remote and Northern communities.
• In January 2025, Alliance staff and co-chairs of the Rural, Remote and Northern Committee attended the Rural Ontario Municipal Association’s annual conference. The Alliance hosted a booth and networked with key stakeholders in rural communities, such as municipal councillors.
Francophone Health
• Over the past year, the Alliance for Healthier Communities has been working on strengthening relationship with Monfort Hospital as well as Assemblée de la francophonie de l’Ontario (AFO). In April 2024, Alliance staff attended the Francophone Health Symposium – AFO Journée de réflexion sur la santé en français en Ontario.
• In December 2024, the Primary Care Collaborative sent a letter to the Minister of Health. The letter called on the Government of Ontario and the Ministry of Health, in collaboration with Ontario Health, to develop and implement a provincial Francophone Primary Care Strategy to increase and improve equitable access to language-concordant and culturally safe primary care for Francophone Ontarians. We outlined four recommendations to support the development and implementation of the strategy.
Harm Reduction
The Alliance has been working with members in response to the evolving substance use health and harm reduction landscape in Ontario. We support members and partners through Communities of Practice to navigate the closure of Consumption and Treatment Services (CTS) sites and creation of Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) Hubs, as well as to support the remaining supervised consumption sites.
A Steering Committee formed to work with a government relations firm in efforts to inform provincial policy changes pertaining to substance use and harm reduction services with the creation of HART Hubs. Through this work, Alliance together with members and partners continues to promote integrated primary health care services grounded in the harm reduction approach for those facing the most barriers to accessing care.
Transitions in Care Project
Over the last year, the Alliance continued to work with the Indigenous Primary Health Care Council on Transitions in Care, a project funded by the Ministry of the Solicitor General. The project connects eligible individuals in provincial correctional facilities to a Community Health Navigator (CHN) from partner Community Health Centres and Indigenous Primary Health Care Organizations. CHNs support these individuals to find timely, safe, and culturally appropriate primary health care services upon their release.
CHNs across seven demonstration sites began case carrying in May 2024. By the end of March 2025, 248 individuals were successfully connected with a CHN, with 98 people having access to primary health care services following their release.
2SLGBTQ+ Health
The Alliance supported the 2SLGBTQ+ Committee to hold a series of lunch and learn webinars. The webinars aimed to build members’ capacity to provide the right care and supports for the 2SLGBTQIA+ communities. They focused on the importance of gender affirming care, explored ways to confront the rise in barriers to gender affirming care and challenge misinformation, delved into the standards required to provide high quality health care services for gender diverse people, and offered tools to advocate for gender affirming practices.
Enhancing the Capacity, Sustainability and Influence of Alliance Members
EPIC Learning Health System 3.0
Over the past year, the Alliance has worked to strengthen our Equity, Performance, Improvement, and Change (EPIC) Learning Health System (LHS). We have updated the governance of the EPIC LHS to encourage more engagement from across the sector, including from people in quality improvement (QI) and client-facing roles.
We are making stronger connections between practice-based data and tailored resources while also providing more support for teams to use reports for improvement. We shared our Learning Health System story as a poster at the North American Primary Care Research Group Annual Meeting and presented it in PEI, New Brunswick, and British Columbia.
Supporting Continuous Quality Improvement and Capacity-Building in our Sector
• Sociodemographic Data Collection:
Our members’ commitment to learning and improvement is reflected in the progress made last year toward our shared goal of reaching 75% completeness in Sociodemographic Data (SDD) collection. Our sector has passed that milestone for data on income and education, and members are continuing to make strides towards it for racial/ethnic group, gender identity, and sexual orientation data. The Alliance continues to provide supports, and we hope to reach the 75% completeness milestone for all SDD indicators by the end of 2025.
• EQ-5D PROMs Tool Rollout:
Last year, the Alliance published the final report from pilot of EQ-5D PROMs tool and held the Webinar: Measuring “Better” Better in December 2024. The Rapid Action Learning Intensive on Patient Reported Outcome Measures (RALI-PROMs) was launched in January 2025, and as of March 31, 15 teams had signed up to participate.
• Building Capacity for Social Prescribing in our Sector:
The Social Prescribing Online Training modules were released in June 2024. The training is now also available in French and has 312 active learners. Ontario Social Prescribing Community of Practice has grown to include 355 members from 225 organizations.
The Links2Wellbeing project now has 32 Alliance member centres participating, with 13 receiving tailored implementation and quality improvement coaching over the past year. The Social Prescribing Data Working Group was formed to support data collection processes.
• Other Supports for Learning and Quality Improvement (QI)
- Professional Learning Event on data use and quality improvement with 154 participants
- Communities of Practice (CoPs) for data management, EMR use, financial management and reporting, health promotion, privacy, data security, Interprofessional Primary Care Teams (IPCT) expansion, and a new Artificial Intelligence (AI) CoP launched this year.
Building Capacity for Civic Engagement
The Alliance partnered with Elections Canada’s Inspire Democracy program to engage members in educating people who face barriers to electoral participation. We co-hosted a three-part webinar series in the fall of 2024, with two train-the-trainer sessions on Federal Election participation and a panel discussion among members on civic engagement strategies and learning. The webinar recordings and additional resources are available in the Alliance resource library.
Phishing Derby
During the month of October, the Alliance organized the first phishing derby where member organizations participated in three phishing campaigns to find the organization(s) with the lowest percentage of clicks. Forty-one members participated in the derby. Health Zone NPLC and Sandy Hill CHC won with zero clicks on all three phishing campaigns. Congratulations to both teams!
Virtual Privacy Office
In 2024, the Alliance piloted a new virtual privacy office service designed to provide tailored privacyoriented assistance to supplement the alreadyexisting privacy program and provide support for designated Privacy Officers. The virtual privacy office service is now available to all members. For a nominal flat annual fee, this service offers ongoing privacy assistance and resources to help ensure compliance with privacy regulations and best practices.
Using Research and Data to Tell Our Story
• This year, the Alliance embarked on nine new research projects and contributed data to 48 projects led by Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES).
• Alliance staff and members published articles in six peer-reviewed publications on topics relevant to our sector:
- Health Promotion in our sector
- Our journey to being a learning health system
- The value of Black-Focused Social Prescribing
- The impact of leadership style on primary care teams
- The role and impact of social work in primary care teams
- Using data to develop an AI tool to support system planning
• Alliance work was presented in over 30 sessions at national and international conferences. Jennifer Rayner, Alliance’s Director of Research and Policy, and Michelle Carr, a client at Northumberland CHC and CMHA board member, presented the Martin Bass Keynote Lecture at Trillium Primary Health Care Research Day, highlighting the importance of team-based primary care.
Financial Report 2024-2025
The Alliance for Healthier Communities has a solid financial picture, with total revenues of $9.7 million
Total revenue of approximately $3 million contributes to our core operations: advocacy, policy, communications, and resource support for our members. This revenue was earned from membership fees, meeting registrations, conference and learning events.
Additional revenue of $5.4 million contributes to our Information Management and Learning Health Systems Program. This revenue was earned from Information Management System (IMS) participation fees and from Privacy and Security Training conducted with member organizations. $2.9 million of IMS fees are a direct flow through to vendors and the rest of the funding was used to support the Data Centre and development of BIRT.
Additionally, under the IMS umbrella both the Ministry of Health and the TELUS Future Friendly Foundation provided grant funding during this fiscal year.
Alliance Board 2024-2025
Aniko Varpalotai, Chair
Former Board Chair, Central CHC
Mike Bulthuis, Vice-Chair
Former Board Chair, Centretown CHC
François Seguin, Treasurer
Board member, Centre Médical Ste-Anne (1992) Inc.
Marc Bisson, Secretary
Executive Director, Centre de santé communautaire de l’Estrie
Cliff Ledwos, Director
Associate Executive Director and Director of Primary Health Care, Access Alliance Multicultural Health and Community Services
Constance McKnight, Director CEO, Misiway Milopemahtesewin CHC
Grant funding in the amount of $1.3 million was received from the Public Health Agency of Canada, Links2Wellbeing Social Prescribing, University of British Columbia (CIHR), Balsam Foundation, Queen’s University, Medavie Health Foundation and Ontario HIV Treatment Network. A significant amount of this funding was distributed to participating member centers.
As of March 31, 2025, the Alliance’s fund balances totaled $1,099,351.
• General Fund: $20,000 was transferred to our general reserve. The balance in the General Fund is $424,997.
• IMS Fund: $30,000 was transferred to our IMS reserve. The balance in the IMS Fund is $350,019.
• Research and Evaluation (R&E) Fund: $2,410 was transferred to our R&E reserve. The balance in the R&E Fund is $324,335.
Audited statements are available upon request.
Denis Constantineau, Director CEO, Centre de santé communautaire du Grand Sudbury
Elise Harding-Davis, Director Board Chair, Harrow Health Centre Family Health Team
Jeanie Argiropoulos, Director CEO, Scarborough Centre for Healthy Communities
Sharon Bevington, Director Administrative Lead, Lakeshore Community Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic
Suzanne Obiorah, Director CEO, Somerset West CHC
Tera Osborne, Director Executive Director, Tsi Kanonhkhwatsheríyo Indigenous Primary Care Team
We would like to thank outgoing board members – Aniko Varpalotai and Marc Bisson – for their dedicated service on the Board and outstanding contributions to advancing health equity through comprehensive primary health care.
