About CK OHT

Where is Chatham-Kent located

Chatham-Kent is a ‘community of communities’, composed of many small towns and villages in the heart of southwestern Ontario. Located between Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair, Chatham-Kent is a welcoming, and diverse rural community.

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What is the Chatham-Kent Ontario Health Team?

On December 7, 2019, the Ministry of Health officially announced the Chatham-Kent Ontario Health Team as one of the first 24 OHTs in the province. Today, there are 34 organizations and over 100 individuals that participate formally in the CKOHT as a representative on one or more of the: Collaborative Steering Committee, 3 Advisory Councils (Physician, Board Chairs of the Steering Committee Organizations, Patient and Family Advisory), 7 Working Groups and several Sub-Working Groups.

There are currently 7 Working Groups of CKOHT, with sub-working groups called Task Teams. As a CKOHT, our Working Groups commit to collectively:

Reduce avoidable ED visits by 5%
Improve the rate of hospitalization for ambulatory care sensitive conditions by 10%
Adopt a Digital First approach
Continue to work on building our OHT partnership

In the future we anticipate expansion to achieve the new Strategic Plan’s goals and objectives. We are growing and shifting to be responsive to our community’s health needs.

BPSO Working Group

Co-Chairs: Meredith Whitehead, Jason Bartell

Digital Health Working Group
Provides leadership and strategic advice regarding the selection, implementation and support of digital assets to ensure optimal health service provider engagement and best possible patient outcomes. The Working Group will foster taking a regional approach, when in the best interest of local healthcare services, in order to leverage existing technologies.
Chair: Mazen Joukhadar
Physician Lead: Dr. Neerja Sharma

Diversity and Equity Working Group
Brings together individuals to apply their learning, collective experience and insights to identify and advise on opportunities to incorporate diverse patient perspectives and voices in initiatives that seek to better integrate care across CKOHT Model. This group will advance and enable effective patient engagement, person-centered care principles and practices within CKOHT with a focus on the unique needs of the diverse populations in CK and breaking down barriers associated with health inequities. This group will also bring forward the voices of diverse populations for shared understanding on how to improve care delivery.
Co-Chairs: Sherri Saunders, Alan Stevenson
Physician Lead: Dr. Kazeem Amoo

Human Resources Working Group

Co-Chairs: Cindy Kremer, Justin Turkington

Integrated Care Design
Co-designs care delivery that is fully and actively coordinated to realign care across organizational and sector lines. This group works with CKOHT patients in mind, embracing and involving patients, families and care partner advisors as strong partners and collaborators. This group will achieve its vision by developing a comprehensive collaborative framework and implementation strategy for integrated care within and between all care provider partners.
Co-Chairs: Denise Waddick, Dr. Briana Yee-Providence
Physician Lead: Dr. Anthony Dixon

Incident Management
Provides advice and recommendations on the response to the pandemic. This group will consider the immediate impacts of the pandemic on the delivery of local services, including but not limited to access to healthcare services; primary care, diagnostic imaging and procedures, surgeries, acute and emergent care and how access to these services will impact the CK community. This group will provide direction on the creation of a long-term strategy for CKOHT to ensure response to future pandemic and other unprecedented emergencies, including advocating for priority services that support the needs of the CK community.
Co-Chairs: Caen Suni, April Rietdyk
Physician Lead: Dr. Brent Rowden

Strategy and Performance Working
Support the completion of deliverables related to the development and implementation of a strategy that will guide CKOHT from the care of the year one population through to the care of the entire attributed population. This working group will equally support the development of performance metrics to measure the success of the programs and deliverables developed as part of CKOHT.
Co-Chairs: Lori Marshall, Heather Brooks
Physician Lead: Dr. Samantha Chandrasena

What does the Chatham-Kent Ontario Health Team hope to achieve?

The ultimate goal of the CKOHT is to bring together health care partners from all sectors, including hospital, home and community care, primary care, long-term care and community support agencies to provide seamless, fully coordinated care for patients, while creating a more efficient system.

The CKOHT’s vision is: “Achieving the best health and well-being together.” This principle will drive efforts as we continue to move toward establishing an a fully mature OHT. The CKOHT will also uphold the Patient Declaration of Values, developed by the Minister of Health’s Patient and Family Advisory Council, which includes respect and dignity, empathy and compassion, accountability and transparency.

CKOHT is supported by funding from the Government of Ontario.

© Chatham-Kent Ontario Health Team 2021