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Media Contacts

Ministry of Health

Communications
250 952-1887 (media line)

Backgrounders

Vancouver northeast UPCC
  • The Vancouver northeast Urgent and Primary Care Centre (UPCC) will feature improved access to care through extended weekend and evening hours.
  • It will offer same-day care for people who need health care within 12 to 24 hours but do not require an emergency department, such as people with sprains, cuts, high fevers and minor infections.
  • This will be the first UPCC in Vancouver Coastal Health to provide access to Indigenous Elder support, which will be available on referral.
  • The centre will be open seven days a week, 365 days per year, regardless of holidays.
  • People will be able to self-refer for their urgent and primary care needs. Patients will also be able to be referred by community service providers, other health-care professionals and agencies.
  • Once fully operational, people who are attached to the UPCC will be able to schedule appointments. During busy periods, appointments will be prioritized based on urgency.
  • Patients requiring laboratory testing beyond simple specimen collection will be provided with requisitions for lab tests to be completed at nearby laboratories.
  • The UPCC will be the first community-based site to use CST Cerner, which ensures electronic information can be easily and safely shared between the centre and local hospitals. This clinical information system is part of a project to improve the safety, quality and consistency of patient care and is in use by more than 11,000 health-care professionals at major acute care hospitals and some COVID-19 test centres. It is being rolled out to facilities across Vancouver Coastal Health, the Provincial Health Services Authority and Providence Health Care.
  • Of the 113,000 people in the region, approximately 14,400, or roughly 12.7% of patients, are considered unattached.
  • The five top identified conditions in the Vancouver northeast region are diabetes, episodic mood and anxiety disorders, hypertension, osteoporosis and asthma
  • Approximately 41.6% of visits to the Mount Saint Joseph Hospital’s emergency department and 27.5% of visits to the Vancouver General Hospital’s emergency department in 2019-20 were non-urgent visits. Many of these could be dealt with in alternative settings, such as a UPCC.
  • The UPCC is 491 square metres (5,291 square feet), including clinical and administrative spaces.
  • UPCCs are part of a comprehensive provincial strategy to transform B.C.'s health system, co-ordinating with health-care providers, services and programs to make it easier for people to access care, receive followup care and connect to other services they may need.
  • The Vancouver Northeast Primary Care Network was announced in September 2020 and will include a team of 10 full-time equivalent (FTE) family physicians or nurse practitioners, four FTE registered nurses, 7.5 FTE allied health providers and one FTE pharmacist. As of Dec. 15, 2020, one FTE family physician, six FTE nurse practitioners, one FTE registered nurse and two FTE allied health professionals have been recruited.