Vancouver Primary Care Networks

Interprofessional Teams (IPTs)

​​​​​​​The Primary Care Network (PCN) Interprofessional Teams (IPTs) are Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) Allied Health Professionals and Community Primary Care Providers working together to support a patient’s medical, wellness and social needs. The Vancouver Division of Family Practice and VCH have partnered to implement IPTs as part of the PCN in your region.

Allied Health Professionals

The Allied Health Professionals on the IPTs are:  

  • Social Workers – seek to address the social determinants of health that impact, or potentially impact, health status focusing on understanding the person in their environment
  • Clinical Counsellors – primary function is to provide psychoeducation, counselling, and psychotherapy to individuals impacted by psychological and behavioral sources of mild to moderate distress
  • Registered Dietitians – provide medical nutrition therapy, and nutrition care services through health promotion, disease prevention, treatment and rehabilitation to support clients and their families, caregivers in managing chronic diseases and to achieve and maintain optimal health outcomes
  • Occupational Therapists – provide needs based solutions in a clinic based and community setting to improve client health and to enable participation in meaningful everyday activities of life
  • Clinical Pharmacists – contribute their drug therapy expertise to optimize the on-going care of patients with complex conditions (such as multiple drug therapies, starting/stopping medication, adverse drug reactions, financial barriers to compliance, etc.)
With the exception of the Clinical Pharmacist, the IPT focuses support on mild to moderate patient care needs.
 
Access to PCN Supports is limited and based on the program’s capacity as well as a clinic’s eligibility requirements. If you would like to check on your eligibility, please contact your Community Network Manager.

Building Capacity

How the Interprofessional Team can help you and your patients:

  • Free for patients who do not have access to extended health benefits or other means of accessing allied health supports within the IPT
  • One referral form for all services (support to embed the referral form in most popular EMRs)
  • Culture of team based care
  • Ability to bill for Care Conferences with the IPT clinician to support your patient

IPT Update - Summer 2023

Click here to read our latest updates on quality improvement and engagement around the PCN Interprofessional Team.

IPT Engagement Series

This monthly online series focuses on connecting team members working together in PCNs. The goals of the series are to learn, connect and share questions and experiences to help IPT Clinicians and primary care providers referring to the IPT to optimize how they work together to support their patients. Click here to register for sessions and find out more! 

Want to know more?

Learn more about Interprofessional Teams by watching the video below:

If you have questions or want to find out more about this program, please get in touch with your Community Network Manager.

You can also find information on this program on Pathways.