Social Accountability Working Group
What we do
About the working group
Social accountability refers to the obligation of family medicine to meet the priority health care needs of Canada’s neighbourhoods, communities, regions, and provinces. It goes beyond the direct care family physicians provide to individual patients. It includes working with policy-makers, academic institutions, and communities, to translate a vision of a socially accountable health care system into evidence-based quality care. For care to be socially accountable, it must be equitably accessible to everyone and responsive to patients and community health care needs.
The College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) is committed to meeting the evolving health care needs of all communities and advocating for equitable health outcomes for vulnerable groups, as highlighted in the CFPC’s 2017–2022 Strategic Plan. The purpose of the Social Accountability Working Group (SAWG) is to advise the CFPC on how it should be involved in social accountability initiatives and to explore the needs, opportunities, and barriers, related to social accountability in family medicine and family practice.
Who we are
Chair
Dr. Ritika Goel, Ontario
Members
Dr. Ian Alexander, Manitoba
Dr. Alex Anawati, Ontario
Dr. Anne Andermann, Quebec
Madonna Broderick, Ontario
Dr. Sandy Buchman, Ontario
Dawnmarie Harriott, Ontario
Dr. Elizabeth Parenteau, Quebec
Dr. Robert Woollard, British Columbia
College of Family Physicians of Canada staff
Arlen Keen, Manager, Health Policy and Government Relations
Artem Safarov, Director, Health Policy and Government Relations
DJ Grewal, Health Policy Analyst
Resources
Social Accountability Working Group (SAWG) Terms of Reference
The CFPC Social Justice Lens: a tool created by the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) to help its committees, working groups, and departments apply the principles of social accountability and social equity to their work; although most practices in family medicine already practise social justice, this tool aims to make these connections even more explicit and ensures work at the organizational level is bound by these principles
Best Advice Guide: Social Determinants of Health: a practical guide that provides family physicians with concrete steps on how to consider and improve patients’ social determinants of health; provides a background on the social determinants of health, including a practical component with suggested clinical, community-level, and population-level interventions
Social determinants of health recommendations: one-page documents that offer micro-, meso-, and macro-level recommendations to address the social determinant of health, prepared by the SAWG
