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Scarborough SCOPE

A virtual team for primary care providers

Call the SCOPE phone line
Physician in her office on the phone
General Information

Scarborough SCOPE (Seamless Care Optimizing Patient Experience) helps primary care providers to navigate a wide range of hospital and community services and resources. Our program is a partnership between Scarborough Health Network (SHN) and Scarborough Centre for Healthy Communities (SCHC) that features an interprofessional team of experts and specialists. Together, we work collaboratively with primary care providers to support, treat and care for patients and families. Since its launch, SCOPE has helped many patients avoid unnecessary emergency department visits and get the care they need sooner.

Need help getting started? Have questions? Need more information?
Please email ScarboroughSCOPE@shn.ca.

Our services

With its dedicated phone line, SCOPE serves as a single access point for registered primary care users to navigate a wide range of services – from speaking with a specialist, setting up a consultation, or booking appointments, to connecting with resources, and getting support for patient care questions.

Assists primary care providers in navigating hospital and community resources, specialist care and other Scarborough Ontario Health Team services.

The Internist on-call provides the primary care provider with an immediate consultation and urgent assessment and management of their patient’s medical conditions.

Our internal medicine service also provides access to specialty clinics as well as long-COVID service.

Connects primary care providers with a mental health coordinator, who can create a bridge to mental health services, such counselling, psychiatrists, and referrals to community-based services. This includes SHN’s clinical intake team, mood and Rapid Access to Addictions Medicine (RAAM) clinic, and Ontario Shores psychiatrists.

Provides primary care providers with direct access to diagnostic imaging staff who can escalate urgent imaging requests, answer questions about different tests and results, and refer directly to the radiologist on-call.

Assistance navigating the system to get patients more timely access to consultations, condition management and surgical follow-up care. An extension of this pathway also provides access to SHN’s Shoulder Clinic for non-fracture, acute or chronic cases.

How it works

Step 1: Become a registered Primary Care Provider user

We invite primary care providers (PCP) to get started with SCOPE today. To register, please complete the provincial SCOPE online registration form.

Step 2: Call the SCOPE phone line

Registered PCP users can get started with navigating services, support and resources by calling our phone line.

Step 3: Select the service you need

Using the phone line, registered PCP users can choose from several options to connect directly with the services you’re looking for:

  • Nurse Navigator
    Press 1 to speak with our Nurse Navigator
  • Internal Medicine
    Press 2 to connect with an internist or access COVID-19 services
  • Mental Health
    Press 3 to connect with a mental health coordinator
  • Diagnostic Imaging
    Press 4 to connect with SHN’s diagnostic imaging staff and booking office
  • Fracture Clinic
    Press 5 to connect with an Orthopaedic Navigator

You may also leave a message and our team will get back to you within 24 hours. Our team is pleased to assist primary care providers to register as part of their call to ensure quick access to services. 

Hours of operation

Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Provincial SCOPE hub

The SCOPE program is is offered collaboratively throughout Ontario by several different hospitals, healthcare providers and community partners. Across the province, there are more than 1,600 registered SCOPE users, and more than 60% of solo primary care providers in Toronto have access to SCOPE.

For information about the provincial SCOPE collaborative, please visit scopehub.ca.

SCOPE in the news

Read about the work Nurse Navigators from SHN and SCOPE programs across the province are doing to connect patients with the care they need. Please note this content is behind a paywall on the official Toronto Star website.

Resources for Physicians

Get Started with SCOPE

We invite primary care providers (PCP) to get started with SCOPE today. To register, please:

Complete the provincial SCOPE online registration

OR

Call the SCOPE
phone line

Scarborough SCOPE By The Numbers

210

Registered Primary Care Physicians

2,260

Calls received since
March 2021

60

Calls received in
December

Referrals

Ocean e-Referral

We are now accepting Ocean eReferrals! For additional information, please email your Ontario Health East Deployment Team at contact@ereferralontarioeast.ca

SHN, the Scarborough Ontario Health Team (SOHT), and Scarborough Family Physicians Network (SFPN) are working together to support healthcare providers in our community who may be interested in onboarding onto Ocean. Get started by completing the Ontario Health East online form.

You can also contact our services through a dedicated phone line at 416-495-2556 or email us at ScarboroughSCOPE@shn.ca.

HOW SCOPE HELPED – Healthcare professionals and patients share their experiences

We frequently hear from physicians and patients about the difference SCOPE has made for them. Come back and visit this section as we update it regularly with the experiences of your Scarborough colleagues and patients in our community.

I have been a member of SCOPE since before the COVID-19 pandemic but within the last month, an opportunity came up when a patient needed to be seen by a specialist. This patient didn’t need to go into the emergency department, but needed to be seen relatively quickly and would have ended up there if their situation could not be figured out. So, I picked up the phone and called SCOPE. Through SCOPE’s assistance, the patient was further referred to Neurology and even had EMG (electromyography) done.

I am sure there are a lot of practices facing similar issues, but my patients are getting older and come into the clinic with multiple issues. In many situations, you need the help of the specialist, and SCOPE could provide that support in a timely manner – I am very impressed and have since used it for two more patients.”

Dr. Ranjit Rana, Family Physician

The entire SCOPE team has been so amazing for both me and my patients. They make it so easy to access timely services that my patients need. They are responsive and extremely helpful. Contacting them requires nothing more than a simple email or phone call and they always follow-up in a prompt and professional manner. My patients and the entire Scarborough community are lucky to have them.

I would highly recommend all physicians to sign up for SCOPE.

– Neil Ingber, MD CCFP

SCOPE Newsletter Archive