Community Based Specialists

Evolution of the Community-based Specialists Initiative

2019: At the Specialists Symposium in 2019, SSC collected feedback on how it can better support all specialists in their work. Supporting community-based specialists without affiliation with hospitals and health authorities was identified as a need, resulting in SSC making it a key priority moving forward.

2020: Early in 2020, the Doctors of BC board, with endorsement from the Representative Assembly, acknowledged the unique concerns of community-based specialists and the need for SSC to increase support for this group.

2021: To better understand the unique needs of community-based specialists without hospital privileges, SSC heard from about 30 community-based specialists representing 12 specialties from across the province. As part of five focus groups, these community-based specialists reflected on potential gaps and opportunities within SSC's mandate and scope of work, and identified concrete and actionable priorities for SSC in these theme areas:

• Theme 1: CBS carry a tremendous "burden of business," significantly contributing to fatigue and burnout.
• Theme 2: CBS do not feel sufficiently connected to colleagues.
• Theme 3: Developing capabilities and training.

Read more in the focus group report.

Why this pilot?

The results of a 2022 survey designed to understand CBS' office setting needs told us there was a demand for support in practice optimization, team-based care, and health technology support. We followed up through a small pilot to assess the approach available to family doctors—the Practice Support Program or PSP—focusing on Office Efficiency and Advanced Access. This work revealed that while the premise was transferable, for the tools to be meaningful, a tailored approach for CBS was required.

Pilot design

An estimated 30–60 self-identified community-based specialists will participate in the pilot, which will be structured into cohorts. The pilot will draw participants from a diverse cross-section of community-based specialists delivering both episodic and longitudinal specialty care. This will include specialties such as rheumatologists, dermatologists, neurologists, cardiologists, respirologists, pediatricians, and more.

Pilot structure

The proposed pilot structure will involve approximately 6-8 cohort-based practice structure reviews, each led by an experienced business advisor, to be completed by March 31, 2026.

Each participating CBS will undergo a facilitated review of their practice, followed by direct consultative support from an expert advisor and technical specialists. This process will identify opportunities to address practice inefficiencies, human resource challenges, and other operational issues. The primary deliverable for each participating CBS will be a tailored practice improvement plan with pre-defined metrics to guide data collection, analysis, and evaluation.

Building on the successful 2024 AI Contextual Charting cohort pilot, this model will be replicated 4-6 times by the end of the project, engaging new CBS in each round and integrating key learnings from previous iterations. Peer mentorship will be incorporated into the approach, as it was identified as a critical success factor in the 2024 pilot.

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