Saskatchewan’s Action Plan for Primary Health Care is based on a collaborative, interdisciplinary team approach to service planning and delivery.

Each Regional Health Authority (RHA) will develop a network of care provider teams to deliver primary health care services, and to provide case management to coordinate services. Primary health care networks throughout the province will offer a full range of core primary health care services.

Primary health care networks and team structures will vary depending on the geographic or social needs of the population. Teams will vary in size and complement depending upon the assessed needs of the community and availability of resources.

The team further extends to include representatives from the community and other human service sectors such as Education, Social Services, Justice and Municipal Government, as well as the public.

A network within a Health Region consists of all the teams that interact with each other. This may include program teams, central teams, satellite and visiting teams. RHAs will generally be a network as specialized program teams may service the whole region.

Program Teams

Program teams form part of the network. There may be one or several of each program team in a Health Region depending on the population served. Some examples of these teams may be mental health, specialized programs, public health (population based i.e. Medical Health Officer, nutritionist, etc.), emergency response teams, and chronic disease management teams (e.g. diabetic management team). These teams would link to all teams in the network.

Teams would exist in institutions as well. Much of what happens in a hospital or Emergency Room is considered primary health care. The management of many medical conditions involves some time in hospital. The hospital and emergency room teams must be linked to the community teams. Further, most of the health care needs that are being met in special care homes are primary health care services. Teams that provide service in special care homes should function on primary health care principles.

Central Team

A central team is envisioned to have at a minimum a group of 3 - 4 physicians and a primary care nurse practitioner serving a population of approximately 5,000 including satellite and visiting locations. In urban areas physician groups may be larger, with 5 - 10 physicians and with 1 or 2 primary care nurse practitioners, and therefore serve a larger population. Although co-location may be desirable for all team members in most cases, this may not be immediately attainable. At a minimum, the nurse practitioner should be co-located with the physician group.

An urban centre may have many central teams serving different communities within the urban boundaries.

A central team may provide visiting services to satellite and visiting locations and provide needed support to smaller teams.

An urban centre may have several central locations and team members may be by way of a virtual team. The key idea is the core team members know each other well and can share the responsibilities of clinical management, proactive care, or health promotion and injury prevention.

Satellite Teams

The satellite team will be connected to a central team and receive visiting services from the central team. A satellite location is envisioned as a community where resident staff or visiting staff offers health promotion and prevention services, clinical services and access to emergency services. A range of basic services is delivered to meet the health needs of the individual, family and community closer to home.

A satellite location will at a minimum have the following services on site:
- a primary care nurse practitioner; and
- a primary care physician (visiting).

The following services would be offered by visiting staff:
- laboratory (specimen collection abilities) visiting or part time services;
- public health;
- home care;
- therapies; and
- emergency services based on geographic needs.

The client/ patient would generally need to travel for other services.