Our Strategic Plan: Advancing family medicine for healthier people and communities.
We enhance family medicine practice, education, scholarship, and leadership, through a culture of collaboration, trust, equity, respect, and curiosity.
Dr. Sonya Lee
Academic Department Head
Department of Family Medicine
University of Calgary
Dr. Ann Vaidya
Clinical Department Head
Department of Family Medicine
Alberta Health Services, Calgary Zone
A Message from our Department Heads
We are pleased to present our Department of Family Medicine (DFM) Strategic Plan for 2024-2029. This document is the result of your input and feedback, and represents thoughts and ideas from across our department.
Diversity and collaboration are our strengths. Our vibrant and distributed community consists of a tapestry of members from across Southern Alberta – physicians, researchers, allied health professionals, staff, and learners. With varied backgrounds and expertise, these individuals enrich our department's fabric and contribute to its vibrancy.
We are a unified clinical and academic department. Our clinical arm represents physicians and teams in acute care and community settings. Our academic arm is dedicated to delivering care in our academic teaching clinics, education and training across Southern Alberta, advancing research and scholarship, and the development of best practice in family medicine care delivery. All of our work would not be possible without the incredible contributions and support of our administrative teams.
This strategic plan encompasses four strategic priorities that are shaped by three foundational principles. These priorities and principles will be the roadmap towards our shared and desired future, where the health of individuals, families, and communities is at the heart of what we do. Our hope is that this strategic plan serves as a catalyst that propels the department to lead in family medicine clinical care, education, training, and research and scholarship. We strive to become a place where all our members are eager and proud to belong.
We are grateful for all the work that has been started to create an environment of diversity and inclusivity in our department. Every member contributes unique skills and perspectives which strengthen our collaborative efforts. We are committed to the principle of equity and recognize that we still have much work ahead to do our part in dismantling structural inequities in our organization and in the healthcare system.
Thank you to everyone who contributed to this process – this document will guide our decisions and actions over the coming years. We commit to being accountable to this strategic plan and are excited about the journey ahead. Finally, we extend our heartfelt appreciation for the work you do and your continued commitment to our department.
Strategic Planning Process
The DFM 2024-2029 Strategic Plan is the result of consultation and engagement with our DFM clinical and academic teams, and collaborators including physicians, researchers, educators, staff, learners, health care teams, and community partners. The strategic planning process started in late 2022 and included a department-wide survey, consultative virtual sessions, and a two-day in-person retreat attended by representatives from all DFM areas as well as key external partners. Throughout 2023, DFM leadership teams iteratively reviewed the output of these sessions, formulating strategic priorities and foundational principles.
These were shared broadly in numerous sessions and settings, and collaboratively refined by multiple DFM committees and groups. Each group completed goal-setting sessions in the context of the developing plan to allow for early implementation considerations. DFM leaders and groups then defined key performance indicators and activities to specifically guide our work over the coming years.
Strategic Plan
Our People and the Profession
Support and celebrate our people and promote the value of family medicine.
Our people are our strength. We embrace the diverse skills and perspectives within our department, valuing each contribution as integral to the success of our collaborative efforts. Our hope is to foster the well-being of all department members across Southern Alberta – staff, learners, health teams, physicians, educators, and researchers.
We encourage all members on their professional journey and proudly recognize their successes along the way. Our members, leaders, and partners are supported in their advocacy for our profession and the promotion of family medicine.
Patient Care and Medical Education
Educate and develop competent teams to serve in our diverse care settings and distributed communities.
Caring for patients and training future healthcare system professionals are core elements of what we do. Our integrated and high-functioning teams accomplish this across our clinical, administrative, education, and research domains. Our clinical teams strive to provide high quality, comprehensive, patient-centred care that is adaptive to the evolving needs and complexity of our patients. Our learners are inspired to be family medicine specialists, health professionals, educators, researchers, and leaders. Our dedicated and skilled teachers are one of our greatest strengths, and we endeavour to value, support, and promote education and teaching.
Scholarship and Innovation
Create and implement knowledge that advances family medicine, primary care, and health equity.
We aim to be responsive to the evolving needs of communities and contribute to advancing our profession through scholarship and innovation. Our members lead programs of research that result in innovative healthcare solutions addressing the diverse needs of individuals and communities, and that bridge the gaps in access and quality. Our clinics are settings where we develop, test, and implement innovations in practice and education. Research networks enable collaborative engagement with our community and facilitate community-based research that links knowledge to practice and policy.
Our Communities
Build and sustain relationships, connections, and partnerships.
Relationships are the cornerstone of family medicine. As a connected and integrated department in a diverse and distributed environment, we aspire to cultivate and maintain robust collaborations and partnerships. We are committed to meaningful engagement to advance clinical care, education and training, scholarship, and innovation. Patients, local and provincial partners, and remote, rural, and urban communities across Southern Alberta are highly valued partners and collaborators.
We strive for health equity through our decisions and actions. Embracing a culture of reflection and continuous learning, we empower individuals to challenge biases and seek out diverse perspectives. We are committed to dismantling systemic racism, addressing discrimination, and acting against oppression. We aspire to provide healthcare, learning, and research environments that celebrate diversity, foster inclusion, and promote equity, resulting in a deep sense of belonging. Together, we will provide equitable and culturally sensitive health care, and address the social determinants of health and systemic inequity to eliminate health disparities.
We acknowledge past and present harms, and recognize these harms continue to impact the health of Indigenous communities. Guided by the Cumming School of Medicine’s Indigenous Health Dialogue and Alberta Health Services’ Indigenous Health Commitment: Roadmap to Wellness, we are dedicated to ongoing and meaningful reconciliation. We are committed to continuous reflection and learning, and actively improving systems and processes that nurture healthy Indigenous communities. Through our strategic priorities, we strive to mitigate and eliminate the ongoing impact of colonization. The DFM is privileged to engage in this work in partnership with Indigenous faculty, staff, students, and communities.
The health of all individuals and communities is intimately connected to the planet's health. We seek to promote environmentally sustainable practices and build climate-resilient healthcare systems. Our pledge is to weave planetary health practice, education, and research into the fabric of our department, and to learn from Indigenous Traditional Knowledge of living harmoniously with the planet. We hope to nurture a generation of health care professionals who are proficient in safeguarding the intricate balance of our planet’s ecosystems.