The Northern Health Virtual Primary and Community Care Clinic provides services by phone or through a video call. The COVID-19 Online Clinic name has changed, and is now the Northern Health Virtual Primary and Community Care Clinic. The phone number remains the same. The Virtual Clinic continues to provide COVID-19 assessments for those experiencing symptoms. The Virtual Clinic provides a supplemental layer of service to Northern Health's family physicians, who remain the cornerstone of our regional health care system.
Patients can call the Virtual Clinic to access a family doctor or nurse practitioner:
- Phone: 1-844-645-7811
- Fax: 250-561-1927
- 10 am to 10 pm daily (including weekends and statutory holidays)
Purpose
- The goal of the clinic is to provide culturally-safe primary and community care services for unattached patients, or where access to primary care is limited.
- The Northern Health Clinic will help support rural health care providers with access to broader health care resources, including support in day-to-day patient care as well as access to specialists for consultation when needed.
- The clinic will continue to provide screening, assessment, and coordination of testing for COVID-19.
- The Northern Health Virtual Clinic is one part of the overarching Northern Health enhanced access to primary and specialist care strategy.
Virtual Clinic services
This phone line is for after-hours care when health centres or primary care homes are closed, or for patients who don’t have a primary care provider or who cannot travel due to seasonal weather or other barriers. Patients are encouraged to call their family doctor or nurse practitioner first to see when they can get an appointment.
Patients should call the phone line if they or a family member are experiencing:
- Asthma
- Ear aches
- Eye irritation/injuries
- Feelings of anxiety, sadness, or depression
- Headache
- Mild back pain
- Mild breathing difficulties
- Mild shortness of breath
- Minor burns
- Skin rashes and infections
- Sore throat or cough
- Sprains caused by minor accidents and falls
- Symptoms of COVID-19
- Urinary tract infections
- Vomiting, diarrhea or dehydration
- Worsening cough
- A need for support around substance use treatment such as Opioid Agonist Therapy, or safer pharmaceutical alternatives to street drugs
Job opportunity
Interested medical staff from across Northern Health will have an opportunity to work at the clinic.
Training and the Electronic Medical Record (EMR)
Patient charting will be done in an electronic medical record and training will be provided.
Follow-up
A continued part of the service will be information-sharing with the patient’s primary care provider and other members of the patient’s primary care interprofessional team. This includes working with the person's primary care provider to arrange for in-person follow-up as required, or working to attach patients to primary care providers in their community.
Supports available
This service will build on an understanding of the needs and wants of the people and families we serve and an understanding of the existing assets and capabilities that already work well for communities, people, and providers. Community-specific resource lists will further support local care coordination.
Clinic oversight
Other resources
Compliment or complaint?
If you have a complaint or compliment about the NH Virtual Clinic, please contact NorthernHealthVirtualClinic@northernhealth.ca. If the complaint is not resolved, contact the Patient Care Quality Office at patientcarequalityoffice@northernhealth.ca or 1-877-677-7715.