Engage physicians and leadership

Health leaders from primary care and Alberta Health Services (AHS) played an critical role in this project. This included:

• emphasizing the importance of the project
• setting it as a priority action item
• embedding action into practice
• ensuring adequate staffing
• testing team roles and responsibilities
• building human resource capacity and training
• testing the impact and making iterative changes

Primary care physicians showed leadership their shifting mindset and collaborative practice. Together with their team, they persevered through some immense challenges and complex wayfinding. They supported the use and documentation of a financial strain screening tool to start the conversation about social needs with their patient. They uncovered surprising revelations from the question and smashed previous assumptions about income and the impact on health. By tapping into a broader team and working collaboratively with the patient, primary care teams identified many ways to respond appropriately to their needs. Teams varied in size and makeup and each team tested ways to #starttheshift in their work setting.