File photo (image credit - CFJC Today)

By Michael Reeve

'We can do primary health care better'

STEPS hopes its healthcare model can expand to help more residents access primary care

Jun 21, 2024 | 5:00 PM

KAMLOOPS — STEPS stands for Supporting Team Excellence with Patients Society. The non-profit healthcare organization has two Kamloops clinics and one located up at Sun Peaks

On Thursday (June 20), the STEPS team made a presentation to the Thompson Regional Hospital District about the success it has achieved in providing primary care but also the many challenges that exist as it looks to help more residents of the region.

Currently in the Kamloops area, approximately 40,000 residents are without a family doctor. That number would be far worse if not for STEPS, who is providing primary care to 14,000 area residents.

“A lot of the changes we’ve been able to impact are through advocacy and we need awareness to drive advocacy. And we want to share this model. Our goal is to demonstrate that we can do primary health care better and then share it with others to it expands on a bigger scale,” said STEPS’ board of directors president Colin O’Leary.

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Along with the 14,000 attached patients, STEPS also helped divert more than 3,000 people from emergency rooms, allowing the ERs to focus on the highest need cases.

The issue facing the work being done by STEPS is two fold, starting with laser-thin financial margins.

“Accessing that operational funding can be a real challenge,” said O’Leary. “And the other thing is we do complex budgets out years in advance. Being able to know that we can access a dependable revenue stream helps us to scale appropriately and make sure we are prepared to maximize those dollars for the best impact possible.”

Thompson Regional Hospital District chair Mike O’Reilly asked staff about potentially directing funds to STEPS, but noted it’s would be a long process.

“That would be a long road for the board, but as health care is changing quite rapidly we also need to be aware, as a board, what is happening and how we can help our residents the best. It is worth exploring and having conversations and that was the impetus for that today,” said O’Reilly.

In addition to funding needs, STEPS has also run out of physical space to treat patients, but an interesting idea proposed by smaller communities like Merritt and Lillooet was to use vacant hospital space.

“It’s a complex equation, though. It’s not just space but it’s getting our hands on additional family doctors, which is a very limiting factor in this whole equation and it’s hard to do,” said O’Leary. “But I think by starting to talk about this, we can hopefully expand the model and get more people family doctors, whether that is through STEPS directly or helping other organizations that do similar stuff to what we do.”

Physicians spend approximately 45 per cent of their days doing administrative tasks, a role STEPS takes over, allowing doctors to be doctors.

“You hear a lot about doctors getting burned out but a major part of that is that they are running a business on top of being a doctor and we can take that all away,” highlighted O’Leary. “They can come in and know that they have a team supporting them.”

This week, STEPS reopened its urgent primary care clinic in Sun Peaks for the summer season on the mountain. It runs in coordination with their healthcare clinic at the resort.