Using data to drive policy action: an urgent call for funding interdisciplinary team-based rheumatology care

Canadian healthcare systems face mounting pressures from rising chronic disease prevalence, persistent specialist shortages and escalating healthcare expenditures. Rheumatology exemplifies these challenges, with growing patient demand and a persistently limited rheumatologist workforce caring for patients requiring intensive ongoing specialist care. Population-level data on rheumatology patients demonstrate increasing rheumatic disease prevalence, emergency department utilization, disability and medication expenditures, underscoring the unsustainability of physician-centric care models. Across Canada, there is a broad policy consensus that team-based care is essential to improving access, reducing system pressures and enhancing outcomes for patients with chronic disease. However, team-based models have not been systematically extended to specialty care across jurisdictions. Team-based models of rheumatology care that integrate allied health practitioners in rheumatology practices are essential to improving access, enhancing care quality and optimizing workforce capacity. Leveraging existing interprofessional team funding mechanisms to rheumatology settings represents a pragmatic, evidence-informed policy pathway to modernize specialist care delivery and improve the sustainability of the healthcare system.