Our Priorities

East Toronto Health Partners (ETHP) is dedicated to working together to create an integrated system of care across our communities. This means a better, more connected healthcare system that allows local residents to find the care they need close to home.

Since being named one of Ontario’s first Ontario Health Teams (OHT) in December 2019, we’ve established a number of steering committees and working groups comprised of staff, physicians and leaders from our member organizations across East Toronto, as well as clients, families and caregivers.

These groups help guide our priority populations work and support our goal of improving the way people in East Toronto find and get their care. These groups also support our priorities as an OHT:

  • Accelerate integrated care across our partners;
  • Expand our shared efforts to manage the COVID-19 pandemic and prevent/control infection;
  • Engage our clients, caregivers and communities at every level of our work; and
  • Advance population health and reduce barriers to health equity.

About Our Priority Populations Work, Steering Committees and Working Groups

Priority Population: Seniors who have chronic illnesses, and their caregivers

In 2019, a steering committee was formed to help guide our work in improving care for this population. This work is supported by smaller working groups, which focus on the following areas: asset mapping and navigation, frail seniors and caregiver support, an integrated service model for Toronto Community Housing, Home2Day, and client and caregiver engagement and communications.

These groups have largely focused on specific high-needs neighbourhoods. These groups have also supported a number of projects that aim to improve care for local residents, including seniors.

These projects include the Taylor-Massey Healthy Communities Framework, which involved gathering significant data to better understand the care needs of Taylor-Massey and identifying gaps in available services, and the Primary and Community Care (PCC) Response Teams, which offer neighbourhood- and team-based health and social services care planning to help vulnerable adults navigate the healthcare system. Learn more about our seniors with chronic illnesses work.

Priority Population: Adults with mental health and substance use concerns

In an effort to address the opioid crisis, this work brings together organizations that aim to provide individualized supports and enable integrated care for patients with complex health needs, including mental health and substance use issues. The purpose of this work is to improve patient experience and health outcomes; reduce non-essential visits to the hospital; and increase access and use of primary care, community and social services to address the social determinants of health.

Priority Population: Youth who need support for mental health and wellness

ETHP has developed a Youth Advisory Council (YAC) to centre the voices of local youth and folks with lived experiences of navigating youth-centred mental health supports and services. This work aims to provide high-quality integrated care through the development of a seamless digital solution accessible to youth and providers. This helps ensure clients receive the best care and support in the right place at the right time. ​

There are three committees that youth leaders and champions participate in. These individuals also participate in other ETHP work that requires guidance and feedback from youth.

  1. The Youth Mental Health Steering Committee is co-designed and co-created by the YAC to help ensure youth’s voices, perspectives, expertise and guidance are incorporated into the planning and implementation of youth-centred mental health services across ETHP.
  2. The Youth Mental Health Resources Committee advises on a pilot facility being planned for the Thorncliffe Park and Flemingdon Park neighbourhoods that will better connect local youth with primary care services. The Committee is a sub-group of ETHP's Primary Care Integration Working Group, which aims to increase access to primary care for residents.
  3. The Mental Health TO (MHTO) Scope Pathway Committee aims to improve access to mental health resources and primary care for youth.

This work aims to improve mental health and wellness coordination and services to support youth and their families in East Toronto.​ It also aims to strengthen collaboration between mental health, addictions, primary care, social and wellness organizations and services across East Toronto. It supports the growth of neighbourhood-centred integrated service models for priority populations. ​

Digital Steering Committee

The Digital Steering Committee (DSC) leads ETHP’s digital vision to deliver a seamless continuum of care that is focused on population health, with programs tailored to local communities built on a connected digital ecosystem.

Made up of members from across ETHP, the committee is focused on bringing broader alignment, digital enablement and integrated technology to better serve and improve the experience of our partners, clients and community members in East Toronto.

The DSC, along with the Privacy Working Group (see below), develop and align on privacy related processes and toolkits that will enable ETHP to better leverage our Data Sharing Agreement, and plan collaborative initiatives more effectively.

The DSC’s priorities include:

  • Patient experience: Enabling easier access to information, services and overall navigation across the healthcare landscape, in the community and digitally.
  • Virtual care enablement: Through connected platforms and user-friendly designs, virtual care delivers a seamless experience for patients and providers.
  • Create sustainable digital solutions: Design and deploy processes and digital solutions that will allow ETHP partners to improve connectivity and collaboration within our region and beyond.

Privacy Working Group

The Privacy Working Group (PWG) helps create a governance structure and ensure privacy compliance for all ETHP projects in accordance with the Data Sharing Agreement. The PWG is made up of representatives from ETHP member organizations.

 The PWG is responsible for:

  • Establishing the privacy program for ETHP, including the establishment, oversight and monitoring of a privacy governance framework;
  • Establishing processes for identifying and mitigating privacy risks for ETHP projects, including but not limited to site assessments and/or privacy impact assessments; and
  • Evaluating ETHP projects where personal health information will be shared to ensure the privacy of all clients are upheld and all information is protected from misuse.

Evaluation Steering Committee

The Evaluation Steering Committee provides advice and support to the evaluation lead for the assessment of ETHP’s efforts to create a more integrated system of care across East Toronto. Members of the Evaluation Steering Committee include representatives from ETHP member organizations and community advisors, including clients, families and caregivers.

Anti-Racism Committee

The Anti-Racism Committee addresses systemic racism and health inequities that continue to plague the healthcare system. This helps achieve long-term positive outcomes for ETHP’s most vulnerable clients. It also helps ensure we are building anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism work into the foundation of our OHT and demonstrates our commitment to redesigning the healthcare experience for people in East Toronto.