Issue brief: designing integrated approaches to support people with multimorbidity in Ontario

    Publication year: 2013

    Managing multiple medical conditions is part of the daily life of a growing number of Ontarians. As Fortin et al. observed, “patients with multiple conditions are the rule rather than the exception in primary care.”(2) Multimorbidity (living with three or more medical conditions) has attracted significant attention among health system policymakers and stakeholders in Ontario, in part because adults with multimorbidity account for more than two-thirds of healthcare costs.(3) Multimorbidity not only has a significant impact on healthcare utilization and costs, but affects quality of life, ability to work, employability, disability, processes of care and mortality.(4) Despite the burden of multimorbidity, patients often receive care that is “fragmented, incomplete, inefficient, and ineffective.”(4) Thus, there have been growing calls for changes to health systems and clinical decision-making processes to more effectively and efficiently provide the complex care required by those with multimorbidity.(5;6) One such response in Ontario has been Health Links, which was launched in December 2012 and now includes 26 ‘early adopters’. Health Links are designed to support local patient-care networks, led by a coordinating partner, and attempt to coordinate and optimize access to needed services, initially with a particular focus on the 5% of patients who consume about 66% of healthcare costs.(3;7) However, primary care, community care and other providers, whether working as part of or separate from Health Links, need support to achieve measurable successes in caring for patients with multimorbidity and preventing multimorbidity in those at risk, and to achieve health system transformation more broadly for this patient group.

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