KB Division Annual Report 2024
Welcome to our 2024 Kootenay Boundary Division of Family Practice *virtual* Annual Report. Here, we warmly invite you to learn more about our collective impact over the past year and explore our strategic directions.
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Over the past year, we’ve remained committed to delivering on Kootenay Boundary Division’s four-pillar strategy, with its focus on building Equitable, Resilient, and Vibrant Primary Care in our Region. While we continue to face many of the same challenges as in previous years - including the continued high level of unattachment - we have also made real progress, thanks to the dedication of our members, our KB Division team, and our partners both locally and provincially. |
This year, we’ve deepened our efforts across several areas. We continued to focus on unattached patients through on-the-ground initiatives like the KBscreen.ca project and the development of an episodic care clinic, which is aimed to open in the coming months. Additionally, our Care4All engagements explored creative, community-driven solutions to address primary care challenges, looking beyond traditional recruitment strategies to areas such as social prescribing, patient triage, and the use of AI (more on this below!). We have also continued to foster strong connections with our Division members through our 50-event Continuing Professional Development (CPD) program, clinic lunches, the KB Dispatch, and our AGM.
We’re always here to listen to your ideas, feedback, and questions as we work together to strengthen primary care in the region - just email us at info@kbdivision.ca.
Recruitment & Retention
We’re proud of the progress we’ve made on our key goals this year. First, we successfully recruited eleven new family doctors and one nurse practitioner, including six who will focus on longitudinal practice and five who will serve in emergency and hospitalist settings. Following up on last year’s retention research, we introduced our Community Ambassador to welcome and support new practitioners and locums, ensuring they have a person dedicated to helping them integrate smoothly into the community. For more detail on our clinic support initiatives, see below!
Strengthening Access to Care for Unattached Patients
We’ve continued to address the needs of unattached patients with the launch of KBscreen.ca, a cancer and AAA screening clinic for unattached patients that has been up and running since April. As noted above, the episodic care clinic, KB Access Clinic, is also moving forward, with 25 physicians stepping up to provide much-needed service. We also launched our ‘Looking for a family Practitioner’ campaign to provide links to the many resources available for unattached patients. These are a few of the efforts helping us take meaningful steps toward helping unattached patients in the region access care.
Primary Care Network
On the Primary Care Network (PCN) front, we’ve welcomed a new nurse practitioner to the team, further optimized the use of social workers across the PCN, expanded social worker and occupational therapy (OT) support for clinics lacking these resources, and supported the development of new patient group programming by regional registered nurses (RNs) focused on diabetes and advance care planning.
Care4All Engagements
One of the highlights this year was our Care4All engagements. These sessions brought together over 150 Kootenay Boundary practitioners, Indigenous partners, Interior Health representatives, and patients to tackle the challenges of unattached care in a creative and hands-on way.
Through these highly interactive events, participants imagined being on a desert island with only existing resources to meet the community’s health care needs. From this scenario, they explored innovative solutions—such as social prescribing, patient triage, the use of paraprofessionals, and AI - all aimed at ensuring patients could access the care they need.
Against the stark backdrop of the Canada-wide shortage of family practitioners, Care4All challenged participants to think differently and prioritize locally implementable solutions. The Care4All engagements have already begun shaping new strategies, with budget allocations and top priorities identified to guide our work in the coming year. Keep an eye on your inbox as these initiatives progress!
Prima Health
Prima Health is a not-for-profit cooperative in Kootenay Boundary established to operate and provide management supports to community clinics in collaboration with practitioners and communities. This past year, Prima Health and the Kootenay Boundary Division of Family Practice have been working closely together to continue work on designing and implementing a vision for a future for primary care clinics that is equitable, sustainable, and resilient, with space for new practitioners, reduced administrative burden and robust team-based care. Prima Health continues to advocate for a full complement of community clinics in our region as outlined in our Regional Service Plan submitted in the fall of 2023.
Prima Health continues to manage the KB Health Online Clinic, an NP-led primary care clinic, and successfully transitioned the Beaver Valley Clinic to community-led operations under Prima Health in October of this year. Additionally, three clinics in the Boundary region have signed agreements for financial and HR management support from Prima.
KB Division and Prima Health also worked with the Lower Columbia Community Health Centre Network Society who received approval in September for the Lower Columbia Community Health Centre in Trail (Read all about it!).
As we look to the future, we remain committed to developing innovative community-based clinics that reduce the administrative burden on practitioners, improve recruitment efforts, and offer sustainable, long-term solutions for primary care in the region. For more information, visit primahealth.ca.
A Relationship-Centered Focus for 2025
At the foundation of all our work lies the core belief that relationship is at the heart of exceptional care. As we move into 2025, this principle will continue to guide us through challenges and inspire us to work together in building solutions—with a focused commitment to the goal of ensuring all residents of Kootenay Boundary have access to the care they need.
📽 This 6-minute video highlights strategic directions and featured impacts within our mission to help practitioners meet patient and practice needs, lead change in an evolving primary care system, and work with partners to shape a better future for health care in BC.
A collection of KB Division project highlights from 2023 - 2024 is captured below. Explore a complete snapshot of all current KB Division projects →
🔶 Welcomed six Longitudinal Family Physicians, four ED Physicians/Hospitalists, and two NPs to full-time practice in KB. Supported 28 locums in finding short-term placements to relieve practitioner workload, providing a welcoming introduction to KB. Onboarded 16 residents and three students for UBC’s Rural Residency and ICC programs, and collaborated with the kbdoctors.ca hub and Facility Engagement teams to recruit eight specialists, with four more offers underway.
🔶 Launched the Community Ambassador project to support new primary care practitioners (permanent, locums, residents, and internationally-trained doctors) in KB. Introduced the program to 26 clinics, featuring the “Welcome Gurney,” an online community, and onboarding resources. To date, the Ambassador has supported 44 new practitioners (8 permanent, 11 locums, and 25 residents).
🔶 Delivered 36 regional rounds, nine “Dine & Learns,” and two annual conferences, tailoring content to meet community needs. Improved attendance for CPD events and collaborated with recruitment and retention to ensure new physicians are well-integrated into KB’s CPD program.
🔶 Co-presented the AI Scribe webinar with Central Interior Division and Doctors of BC to 50+ attendees, addressing AI’s potential to reduce clinical admin burdens and covering implementation, privacy, and physician insights from three tools in practice.
🔶 Continued KB Primary Care Network (PCN) optimization with a multi-partner Task Force to examine Social Work within the PCN, bringing together PCPs, Social Workers, IH partners, and Aboriginal and patient representatives. Focus areas include Social Work scope, the role of counseling, MHSU relations, and balancing standardization with flexibility. The Task Force will provide recommendations to the PCN Steering Committee in early 2025.
🔶 Implemented changes from the PCN refresh, including revising the Steering Committee Terms of Reference, establishing a Community Advisory Group framework, adapting to new Nurse in Practice contracts and NP resource approvals, and developing revised metrics for provincial evaluation.
🔶 PCN Learning Lab continued as a primary resource for peer learning, delivering four new All Member Learning Labs with resources on Nursing and Direct Booking. Collaborated with Aboriginal partners to hold Cultural Safety Talking Circles for developing Aboriginal-specific best practices. Conducted discipline-specific engagements with NPs, the PCN Regional Hub, and clinic teams.
🔶 Launched KBscreen.ca, in April 2024 a preventive screening clinic for unattached patients. With 118 patients served over 158 visits, KB Screen ordered 294 screenings, identifying eight positive cases. Four patients have since transferred to KB Health, demonstrating the viability of offering a spectrum of services for unattached patients.
🔶 KB Access Clinic, set to open by the end of 2024, will provide episodic primary care to unattached patients in a hybrid model, with both in-person and virtual services, staffed by a nurse practitioner, medical office assistant, and rotational family physicians. Supported by Prima Health Cooperative, KB Division, and partners, the clinic aims to meet urgent primary care needs while fostering a sustainable, supportive environment for health care practitioners.
🔶 In 2023, KB Division collaborated with Prima Health, a regional not-for-profit cooperative, to establish an independent Board of Directors and submit a Regional Service Plan to the Ministry of Health, proposing six community clinics and one virtual clinic to serve over half of the region’s unattached patients. While awaiting funding, Prima continues to advocate for its goals.
🔶 Prima operates KB Health, an NP-led primary care clinic, has transitioned Beaver Valley Clinic to its management, and supports three Boundary clinics with financial and HR resources.
🔶 Prima Health's Regional Service Plan has seen progress with provincial approval for the Lower Columbia Community Health Centre in Trail.
🔶 Kootenay Boundary’s Patient Advisory Committee and Community (PACC) partnered with Black Press/Nelson Star to publish a 12-article series, “Empowering the Citizen Patient” (ECP), promoting KB residents’ engagement in their health and healthcare. To date, the series has reached thousands, with nearly 3,000 website visits.
🔶 The PACC was awarded $12,000 in Health Excellence funding for this work, and the ECP campaign was selected for a poster presentation at the November 2024 Putting Patients First conference.
🔶 Planning is underway for the 2025 Empowering the Citizen Patient sustainability project, beginning with a surgical patient pathway pilot to provide actionable guidance for pre- and post-op care.
🔶 In October, Jen Schmidt joined as the new PACC project manager, following Ruth Beck’s retirement. The KB PACC thanks Ruth for her dedication since 2018.
📸 A few 2023-24 snaps featuring our KB Medical Community & Partners 📸
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The Kootenay Boundary Division of Family Practice extends sincere gratitude to all of our members across the region and to our many health care and community partners for your collaboration and shared dedication.
We gratefully acknowledge the funding of the Family Practice Services Committee, Shared Care Committee and Innovation Fund as well as the support of the Division of Family Practice provincial office and Shared Care central office.
To our passionate physician leads, dedicated committees, patient partners, and skilled contractors - thank you for your contributions and leadership.
With humility and in the spirit of reconciliation, we acknowledge that our work in the Kootenay Boundary region takes place on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the Sinixt, Syilx, Ktunaxa, and Secwépemc First Nations, and is home to many other diverse Indigenous peoples. We ask for wisdom from the ancestors and keepers of this land as we support all of our Indigenous populations on a journey towards culturally safe care and health equity.