A NEW HORIZON New Website Offers Virtual Care STORY BY MICHAEL SEGUIN / PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRIS BONDY COVID-19 HAS IMPACTED everyone, everywhere. However, what’s perhaps most distressing about the coronavirus is how the ripple effects can be felt on both sides of the healthcare industry—the patients and the practitioners. The pandemic has forced healthcare professionals to adopt new strategies to best deliver their services. One of these new strategies is the E-Health at Windsor-Essex website, which Amherstburg Family Health Team and CMHA Health Centre physician and President of the Essex County Medical Society (ECMS) Dr. Jennifer Bondy helped develop. “COVID-19 is a global pandemic,” Dr. Bondy states. “It’s fair to say that everyone on the planet has been impacted in one way or another. Here in Ontario, we’re very fortunate. We have a healthcare system in place that, while not perfect, does provide a high level of care to a great number of people. During regular times, when a person gets sick, you can make an appointment at your local clinic or you can call EMS for emergency assistance. When people require surgery, they have access to some of the best surgical services in the world. These are things we all take as a bit of a given.” However, this pandemic has caused many of these options to be taken off the table. “Thanks to COVID, when we have been able to provide these services, they’ve looked quite different,” Dr. Bondy admits. “This is a time of heightened anxiety for many people.
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As providers, we recognize a lot of the fears that our patients are experiencing on a dayto-day basis.” These changes have also impacted the well-being of the healthcare providers themselves. “We consider it not only our job, but our duty, to continue to provide the highest level of care as possible to our patients,” Dr. Bondy states. “To be honest, it’s been very challenging to not be able to provide the services that our patients want and need. On many occasions, I’ve had to tell patients, ‘I can’t do that for you right now.’ It’s very hard to say that to people and not be able to help them. That being said, I do think that we’re rising to the occasion and finding innovative ways to deliver care to both COVID and non-COVID patients.” Recognizing the need for changing services, Dr. Bondy and many others came together to create the E-Health at WindsorEssex website. “This website is a one-stop shop for our community members to find the primary care service option that they need during the pandemic,” Dr. Bondy explains. “After recognizing that care has had to change, we started delivering more virtual care.” A number of different groups came together to develop the website which was spearheaded by the Primary Care Action Table for Non-Hospital Pandemic Planning. This group is comprised of many area primary care leads, as well as members of the ECMS Executive Committee. Ontario Health West has also provided support. Importantly, the website is equipped with the COVID Population Health Navigator. “It’s right in the middle of the website,” Dr. Bondy states. “It was developed by a team in London led by Dr. Dan Pepe, the Project Clinical Lead. It has rolled out to communities across Southwestern Ontario, including Windsor-Essex and LondonMiddlesex and Waterloo-Wellington.” The COVID Population Health Navigator connects community members who are concerned that they have COVID-19 with primary care providers who are able to give them virtual assessments based on the patient’s unique circumstances. “The website also tracks patient flow and collects important public health data about trends in real-time,” Dr. Bondy explains. The community reaction to this virtual service has been overwhelmingly positive. “Since we’ve launched in Windsor-Essex, we’ve received a lot of positive feedback
