The College of Family Physicians of Canada releases Best Advice Guide

In order to alleviate some of the challenges faced by military families in seeking adequate healthcare, the College of Family Physicians of Canada, in collaboration with Military Family Services, released this week a new Best Advice guide: Caring for Military Families in the Patient’s Medical Home.

This new resource provides family physicians with recommendations on how they, and other healthcare providers, can enhance access to health care for military families.

The key recommendations of the document emphasize many of the challenges particular to military families including promoting military literacy for family physicians by encouraging awareness of their particular challenges; encouraging family doctors to accept military families into their practices in a timely manner; assisting with a smooth transition in care for military families, including providing patents with copies of their records.

The new Best Advice guide also stresses providing appropriate and continuous care for each family members, providing adequate mental health support; connecting families to local resources; and understanding the unique concerns of children and youth of military families.

This new document builds on the 2016 “Family Physicians Working with Military Families” guide. It was compiled in collaboration with experts from a number of military and veteran family advisory groups including Military Family Services, the Vanier Institute for the Family, the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research, Veterans Affairs Canada, the Canadian Armed Forces Health Services and Primary Management.

Click here to read the guide.