Virtual Primary Care Policy for Pandemic Preparedness and the New Normal: Co-designing resilience, sustainability, quality and equity

The COVID-19 pandemic saw primary care teams across Canada shift rapidly to delivering care virtually. This supported resilience in service provision, and accelerated a trend towards Virtual Primary Care (VPC) that had already started. But it also raised important policy issues about who can access VPC, and whether it is financially viable and of good quality. According to recent measures, the policies surrounding VPC are underdeveloped. To fill this gap our team will co-design, with healthcare professionals, patients, and policy-makers, a VPC policy framework. That framework will provide pragmatic policy options in the areas of: system resilience; financial sustainability; effective delivery of high quality care; optimizing the mix of independent fee-for-service and corporate salaried physicians delivering care; and ensuring access for all Canadians. Before we can create the framework, we need to answer some questions that will require us to look at quantitative data, as well as conduct qualitative interviews and focus groups. The questions we will answer using these methods are: 1. Are there changes to the way health professionals are licensed that might facilitate VPC across provincial boundaries? 2. Which policies might best ensure virtual care billing codes are appropriately updated? 3. Which policies might best support the delivery of high quality care? 4. Which policies might best optimize the mix of independent and corporately provided VPC? 5. How does the pivot to VPC shape access to care for marginalized Canadians? 6. Which policies might best support improving access to VPC for marginalized Canadians? To further help answer these questions, we will share our data with healthcare professionals, patients, and policymakers, inviting them to participate in a consensus-building discussion session. That session will result in a policy framework for decision-makers to use as they prepare for future pandemics and optimize VPC in everyday life.