About the CKOHT

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.

What is the Chatham-Kent Ontario Health Team (CKOHT)?

On December 7, 2019, the Ministry of Health announced the Chatham-Kent Ontario Health Team as one of Ontario’s first 24 OHTs. Today, 54 organizations and over 100 individuals participate formally in its governance and initiatives.

Members participate 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 called Action Teams.

These work collaboratively to achieve the goals outlined in the 2021-2024 Strategic Plan.

Learn More About Our Working Groups

BPSO Working Group

Co-Chairs: Meredith Whitehead, Jason Bartell

A Best Practice Spotlight Organization (BPSO) Ontario Health Team (OHT) is an OHT that partners directly with RNAO to implement best practice guidelines (BPG) in order to better respond to health system transformation in Ontario. BPSO is a four year accreditation in which CKOHT must implement four Best Practice Guidelines (BPGs) among its partners in order to achieve accreditation designation. There are 15 participating health organizations in Chatham-Kent that participate in CKOHT’s BPSO.
Digital Health Working Group

Chair: Sara Dalo

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.
Diversity & Equity Working Group

Co-Chairs: Sherri Saunders, Naty Ramirez Reyes

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.
Human Resources Working Group
Co-Chairs: Cindy Kremer, Justin Turkington

The responsibilities of the Human Resource Working Group are grounded in the strategic plan objectives, focused on the goal of maturing the CKOHT. The role is to identify key issues, challenges, and opportunities to find improvements and efficiencies in the health system to re-invest in frontline care. A key focus is to increase health human resource capacity through targeted recruitment and retention initiatives for all health care workers, with a focus on:

Family physicians

Long Term Care and Community Healthcare Organizations

Areas of identified high needs within the Chatham-Kent Community
Integrated Care Design Working Group

Co-Chairs: Brandon Ball, Dr. Briana Yee-Providence

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.
Incident Management Working Group

Chair: Caen Suni

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.
Strategy & Performance Working Group

Chair: Aaron Ryan

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.

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

The goal of the CKOHT is to unite 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 drives our 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. This includes respect and dignity, empathy and compassion, accountability and transparency.

Partner with us in our mission to achieve the best health and well-being together

View our Strategic Plan for 2021-2024