By Sheldon Spackman

Ongoing effort

Committee working to recruit several physicians to Blackfalds

Feb 6, 2021 | 8:00 AM

Efforts are ramping up in the town of Blackfalds to recruit more physicians to the community.

Annamarie Fuchs, chair of the Blackfalds Health Professional Attraction and Retention Committee (BHPARC), says the community is in desperate need of more doctors.

“We have one very part-time physician who is nearing retirement and a population of almost 10,000 people and one of the youngest communities in the country,” explains Fuchs. “Over a 10-year period we’ve more than doubled our size. We’re starting to lose physician support.”

Formed in August of last year, Fuchs says the committee was spawned after town council recognized the strategic value in attracting a critical mass of doctors to the community.

“This is a great place to live,” remarks Fuchs. “We’ve already got a strong commitment to business, to safety, recreation, and innovation. We need to develop a stable and robust healthcare infrastructure.”

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On Jan. 5, the committee participated in a campaign opportunity hosted by the Professional Association of Resident Physicians of Alberta (PARA). A wide range of advantages available to physicians interested in moving to Blackfalds to establish family practices were highlighted.

A four-minute video highlighted the town, its infrastructure, services, recreation, and partnership/business opportunities that exists for the first three physicians who set up shop in Blackfalds.

In total, 47 senior family medicine residents participated.

A healthcare consultant herself with many years of experience in the industry, Fuchs says the committee’s immediate goal is to attract at least three new physicians to Blackfalds.

“Ultimately, we would like as many as eight, but we’ll also be looking at a nurse practitioner strategy and moving forward in that direction. But until we have a few physicians well established in the community, it’s very difficult to attract other health professionals to support the family practice environment.”

With a central location and growing young population, Fuchs suggests that a physician can come to the community’s clinic, and in a short time, have a fully established panel of roughly 1,200 patients.

“We obviously have an enormous opportunity for physicians to establish good panels,” she points out. “We have fantastic services nearby. Red Deer and Lacombe have advanced diagnostic and therapeutics, there’s the Wolf Creek Primary Care Network 10 minutes away in Lacombe and the surrounding areas, there’s the Red Deer Primary Care Network, and we have great infrastructure here, we have clinic space ready to go.”

Following January’s presentation, Jaime LaLiberté, executive director of the Wolf Creek Primary Care Network (PCN), promoted Blackfalds by highlighting the Medical Home Model that PCNs are designed around.

Fuchs describes the opportunities for physicians in Blackfalds as unmatched.

“I don’t see too many other communities that have the tremendous innovation and support of the community and the opportunities that Blackfalds has,” she says. “We know that there are great services nearby, but we also have a very large town that’s approaching city status and it’s time to really start putting our money where our mouth is basically and offer services right here in town for residents to choose from.”