Illustration featuring three healthcare providers with speech bubbles beside their heads: one with a medical cross, one with a computer monitor and one with a house.

Enhancing Integrated Care

Enhancing Integrated Care helps primary and community care delivery organizations strengthen integrated team-based care models, including virtual care, making access easier and easing pressure on emergency departments.

Around one in five emergency department visits happen because of limited access to primary care. Enhancing Integrated Care brings teams together to share knowledge and implement integrated care approaches that help bolster social and healthcare systems, addressing hospital overcrowding.

Illustration of a kneeling healthcare provider holding a tablet for an individual sitting in a chair. The tablet is for a virtual healthcare visit with another healthcare provider.

Meet the teams

Map of Canada with purple bubbles indicating the number of participating teams by province/territory. The largest bubbles are in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta. Full counts in the long description.

Across the country, 40 teams from 9 provinces are part of Enhancing Integrated Care’s cohort 1.

A long-term care home is partnering with primary care providers to establish a memory clinic for clients living with dementia. Some teams are focused on improving access to care for newcomer refugees. Others are leveraging virtual care to support treatment in rural and remote communities.

Together, they are building a collaborative network of leaders who are testing new models of care, learning from one another, and showing what’s possible when care is integrated.

How teams are supported

Both cohort 1 (July 2025) and cohort 2 (December 2025) are supported by:

Seed funding up to $10,000.
Expert coaches to help you address challenges, sustain improvements and plan for long-term success.
Proven tools and evidence-informed resources for implementing and measuring what works.
Virtual learning and networking to share knowledge, celebrate successes and drive collective progress.
Research support from CIHR-funded researchers for teams in the primary care sector.

Participating teams will be supported to pursue their goals while building essential skills in equity, cultural safety, patient engagement and safety. They’ll also explore key topics like quality improvement and working in partnership with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities.

Illustration of three healthcare providers sitting at a table with bubbles containing a medical cross, outline of a head with a heart at the top and a house below them signifying integrated team-based care.

What is integrated care?

Integrated care is a collaborative approach where healthcare professionals from various disciplines—such as primary care providers, specialists, allied health professionals, mental health professionals, pharmacists and community and social workers—work together to provide coordinated, patient-centred care. This ensures patients receive the right care at the right time. The goal is to improve health outcomes, reduce service duplication, and lower costs by offering more efficient, coordinated care.

“I'm excited for the support from HEC, we've been working on this project for two years with hurdles along the way. I’m also looking forward to the coaching and learning opportunities from others across the country.”

- Danielle Kent, Director of Research, Loch Lomond Villa. (Enhancing Integrated Care Initiative: Establishing a multi-specialty interprofessional team memory clinic in the Greater Saint John region in New Brunswick)

What types of projects do teams work on?

Enhanced Integrated Care builds on the success of recent HEC initiatives. These past projects are examples of the type of work that could be further strengthened through this offering:

The Annex (PDF): A primary care clinic in a library offering follow-up and routine care to unattached patients, helping prevent emergency department visits and readmissions.
Enhancing Primary Care Access to Specialist Consultant: Using connected medicine models like RACE™ and BASE™, primary care providers can access real-time specialist advice to improve care planning and timely access.
Carbonear Impact Clinic (PDF): A partnership between an emergency department and family health team to redirect patients to a clinic for acute care, chronic disease management, and attachment to a family doctor.
Integrated Virtual Care (PDF): A virtual care model connecting patients to doctors and team members for virtual and in-person primary care.
Bridge-to-Home: A patient-oriented care bundle to improve safety and support during transitions from hospital to home.
Integrated Virtual Care Framework for Primary Care-Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services (NLHS) Western Zone: A virtual care framework for primary care, incorporating existing frameworks that focus on person and family-centered care, quality improvement and evaluation.
Project ECHO™ Community of Practice Approach (PDF): A virtual training model that builds staff capacity to manage complex dementia cases and avoid emergency department visits.

Explore other programs

This offering is part of Care Forward, a pan-Canadian movement that provides funding and learning supports to drive impact on four key priorities: expanding care access, supporting aging in place, advancing person-centred long-term care and strengthening the health workforce.