Community Engagement

As part of the transformation currently underway in Ontario’s health care system, organizations and community members in Kitchener-Waterloo, Wellesley, Woolwich, and Wilmot (KW4) have come together to form a Ministry of Health approved Ontario Health Team (OHT).
At maturity, KW4 OHT's goal is a health and wellness system for all 400,000 residents that offers seamless, interconnected care and continuity across providers, including hospitals, primary care, long-term care, and community agencies.

The KW4 Ontario Health Team (OHT) is excited to be starting the next phase of our projects to build a seamless, interconnected care system in our region. These projects will focus on addressing the health care needs of newcomers from a patient-focused perspective and proffered
solutions will take into consideration the impact of the social determinants of health on newcomer health.

Project Overview

Neighbourhood Integrated Care Team

The Neighbourhood Integrated Care Team (NICT) seeks to develop and implement a NICT model to
improve access to health services and proactively support community members thereby preventing
unnecessary emergency room visits and potential hospitalizations. This project is currently scheduled to proceed from Oct 2022 to Apr 2024.

Newcomer App

The Newcomer App project seeks to create a way for recent newcomers to provide advice to the
KW4 partners about how to access relevant information and thereby improve newcomers’ ability to
self-navigate local health and social services with accurate, timely, and up-to-date information. This

project is currently scheduled to proceed from Oct 2022 to Mar 31, 2024.

Primary Care Integration and Governance

The Primary Care Integration and Governance project seeks to develop a structure that supports
primary care providers’ and specialists’ active involvement in the KW4 OHT. This project is currently

scheduled to proceed from Oct 2022 to June 2024.

Overview

Get Involved

We believe that community involvement is essential to the success of our projects. We are looking for community members who are newcomers to Canada and live and/or work in Victoria Hills/Cherry Hill/KW Hospital (N2G, N2M, and N2H) and Vanier/Rockway (N2G and N2C) to participate in our projects.

Take charge

The Community Co-Lead will provide insight into their community’s health and social care experiences and make recommendations to address those needs. Additionally, they will also co-chair the Implementation Team meetings and participate in developing project requirements, evaluation methods, etc.

share your input

The project implementation teams will drive the project execution and provide guidance on approaches and strategies to deliver the project goals. They will be the eyes and ears of the community on the project team and act as the project champion within their communities.

Volunteer

Members of our community network may help review materials and participate in surveys or focus group discussions to share their experiences with health and social care within Kitchener, Waterloo, Wellesley, Woolwich, and Wilmot.

If you are interested or want to learn more, please email us at info@kw4oht.com

Accomodations

We are committed to ensuring members of the community interested in participating
have the necessary resources to do so. Please email us if you require any
accommodations to participate.