WEST VANCOUVER, B.C. | Family physician Dr. Bryce Kelpin chose to go big and go home.

Tired of working long hours and never taking holidays, a couple of years ago Dr. Kelpin was ready to close his West Vancouver medical centre and return to walk-in clinic work.

“It was no way to make a living,” said the father of three, who wanted more flexible hours and time at home with his family.

A meeting with a business partner convinced him it would be possible to run a full-service family practice and have a home life. “I wanted to provide full-service family care with better remuneration, better lifestyles, more holidays and flex-time,” said Dr. Kelpin.

To achieve that, he conceived and built Continuum Medical Care, a $1.5-million facility with about 30 doctors and allied health professionals in a 600 m2(6,500 sq. ft.)space.

“There are economies of scale in gathering a large group of doctors together,” said Dr. Kelpin, claiming the use of electronic medical records alone has lowered overhead costs by about 15%.

Continuum has what it calls a “public plus” philosophy. Patients can augment their publicly paid health care with private services such as travel medicine, cosmetic services, chiropractic care, corporate health and advanced preventive screening, and non-funded diagnostic services including MRI and CT scanning.

Though its name denotes the “continuum” of care between public and private systems, Dr. Kelpin said Continuum is not a private medical clinic and its 45,000 patients do not pay for publicly insured services.

“Our goal was to make a self-funding model under fee-for-service,” said Dr. Kelpin, something he felt the government wasn’t supporting. “I didn’t want to wait any longer; I plowed ahead.”

He raised capital through private investments and offers doctors who work there an opportunity to invest in the clinic and share in its profits. Dr. Kelpin said doctors like that they can do higher profitability things, like full physicals, as a way to earn extra income.

Even more attractive than the income opportunities, said Dr. Kelpin, is the flexibility Continuum offers doctors. By sharing patients, the doctors don’t need locums and can seamlessly go on maternity leave or work part-time. “Our model doesn’t only look at the patient . . . we looked at physician lifestyle.”

Doctors who agree to join the Continuum team must sign an occupancy agreement which details the clinic’s expectations, including the use of Wolf Medical Systems electronic medical records(EMRs). Doctors update patient files on their “tablets,” a type of wireless desktop computer. “They(EMRs)lower overhead costs as people can do some of their work from home. Not everyone needs to be on-site all the time,” said Dr. Kelpin. He also said EMRs allow for better patient care by co-ordinating chronic disease management.

Continuum was recognized as a leader in information technology and innovation in November, when it won the prestigious Gold Award of Excellence from the Canadian Information Productivity Awards. The awards program commemorates organizations that have applied information technology innovation to improve productivity and efficiency throughout an organization. Dr. Kelpin said he was honoured to win.

“The CIPA award is like the ‘Oscars’ of technology for business in Canada. We were finalists with companies such as Bell Canada, the Royal Bank, GlaxoSmith-Kline, the University of Toronto and the city of Calgary. To win our Gold Award against these other IT business projects was no small feat for a group of ‘dinosaur’ physicians.”

Dr. Kelpin said he hopes to keep pushing forward with primary care innovations and developing the Continuum model.