Situating Primary Health Care within the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health: Enabling the Canadian Family Health Team Initiative

Abstract

Primary health care (PHC) mandates the provision of services delivered by a collaborative team of providers, ultimately to improve quality of care and health status. Considering the challenges related to interprofessional collaboration within novel PHC models, we explored how the World Health Organization's (WHO) International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) could facilitate the enactment of PHC teams. The Canadian Family Health Team (FHT) initiative is used as an example. This paper will explore how the ICF could inform the development of a practice model to enable PHC. Three potential barriers to the envisioned enactment of PHC within the espoused Canadian FHT initiative are identified through a critical gaps analysis; lack of (i) philosophical grounding, (ii) developmental and operational directives, and (iii) evaluation methods. An ICF-informed practice model is proposed to overcome these potential barriers. It is argued that the proposed ICF-informed practice model has international implications as a unifying conceptual framework ideally situated to facilitate the provision of comprehensive evidence-based person-centered care by interprofessional collaborative teams within diverse PHC models.

Keywords:

• International Classification of Functioning
• Disability and Health (ICF)
• Primary Health Care (PHC)
• Interprofessional Collaboration (IPC)
• Family Health Team (FHT)

Acknowledgements

We thank Dr Doreen Bartlett, Associate Professor, School of Physical Therapy and Dr Philip Doyle, Professor, School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, The University of Western Ontario, London ON Canada for their comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflict of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this paper.

Note

1. Standardized interprofessional practice outcome measures are currently under development at: The University of Western Ontario by Dr Carole Orchard and colleagues; The Center for Effective Practice at the University of Toronto by Dr Scott Reeves and colleagues, and McMaster University/University of Ottawa by Patty Solomon and colleagues.