Divisions wishing to create a publically accessible local database of community health and social services now have two options: Fetch, and a new public version of Pathways called the Pathways Community Service Directory. The first division to roll out the Community Services Directory is the Ridge Meadows Division of Family Practice, in partnership with the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows-Katzie Community Network and the City of Maple Ridge.
Pathways Community Services has been available to logged in user physicians since mid-2018, with the goal of enabling “social prescribing.” Access was expanded to community organizations in spring 2019, leading up to the launch of the public-facing Community Services section.
Both Fetch and the Pathways Community Service Directory offer physicians the ability to find community resources and social services quickly, and provide a wide variety of options for developing treatment plans—such as connecting patients with services to combat social isolation before (or in conjunction with) prescribing antidepressants. Patients benefit from having access to a wide variety of resources and services in one place, and the ability to receive recommendations about appropriate services directly from their physician.
Fetch enables local community service providers to register and update their own information, while the Pathways Provincial team manages data entry and maintenance for provincial, regional, and health authority services in the Pathways Community Service Directory.
Visit the Nanaimo Fetch website as an example of the functionality of Fetch, and visit the new Ridge Meadows Pathways Community Service Directory to see an example of a regional directory in the new public-facing Pathways platform.
Information about the Pathways Community Service Directory, including a list of divisions that plan to launch their own regional directories in the future, is available on the Pathways website.