Patients
Your health care is our number one priority! When you call the clinic, the receptionist will give you an appointment with one of the people on your health care team.
When you arrive for your appointment:
- You will be asked to update your health card and personal information. It is important that you bring a valid health card to every visit.
- A team assistant will bring you to the exam room and may take your blood pressure or additional measurements, depending on the reason for your visit.
- You will meet with your provider and will discuss your health concerns.
- If a follow up appointment is needed, you will be given information on how to book a new appointment with that provider.
While we aim to see all patients in a timely manner, emergencies do happen and you may be seen later than your scheduled appointment time.
As a Stonechurch patient, you have access to a doctor after the clinic closes at 5 pm. We provide after hours care by telephone between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. seven days a week.
Follow these steps if you need help when the clinic is closed:
- If you have a medical emergency, call 911 immediately.
- If it isn’t an emergency, call us.
- Select to speak with the on-call doctor.
- A doctor will speak with you about your health concern. They will help you decide what to do next.
- You and the doctor will decide if you need to see a doctor right away, if you can wait until the next day to see a doctor, or if you don’t need to see a doctor at all.
- The doctor will also provide advice on how you can manage your symptoms.
If you are sick and need to be seen by a doctor on a more urgent basis, the clinic is open every weekend and holiday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The phone is answered between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m.
The weekend and holiday clinics are NOT for routine healthcare visits such as physicals, well-baby visits, prenatal visits, reviewing test results or prescription renewals. These routine healthcare visits should be booked with your healthcare team during regular business hours.
Advanced Access means we prioritize certain concerns for appointments when we work with you to book your appointment. Concerns that require an assessment by a health care professional within the next 24-48 hours are prioritized for any available same day spots.
Appointment reasons that are best addressed by your family physician and their team, or by the clinician of your choice, can be pre-booked for a later time (e.g. forms, mental health counselling, reviewing recent results, etc.). For these appointment bookings, calling after 10:30 am will reduce your wait time on our phones.
We hope that moving towards this new Advanced Access Booking System will ensure that all our patients get faster access to their doctor or other health care professional. Please see our open letter here: Open Letter to Patients – Stonechurch
Our Family Medicine residents play an important role in your health care.
Who is a Resident?
A resident is a fully graduated medical doctor who is completing an additional two years of education in family medicine. They work with a specific family doctor to provide you with the best health care possible.
How does that affect you?
They are typically the person you will see in the majority of your appointments. They will follow your care for the two years they are with the clinic.
Each resident is monitored by one of our family doctors at the clinic through cameras in the room. This allows the family doctor to give them feedback and advice on providing your health care.
Residents are one part of a larger team that works together to care for you and your family.
Communication with our patients is important to us.
Patients can now send secure electronic messages directly to Stonechurch Family Health Centre here.
If you are a patient at Stonechurch, call us to book your next appointment.
We are not currently accepting new patients at this time.
How we protect your Privacy:
- The physicians and staff at the McMaster Family Health Team treat your personal health information with respect and sensitivity in accordance with the Ontario Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004 (PHIPA) and all other applicable laws.
- We take steps to protect your personal health information from theft, loss and unauthorized access, copying, modification, use, disclosure and disposal.
- We conduct audits and investigations to monitor and manage our privacy compliance.
- We take steps to ensure that our physicians, staff and any other person who performs services for us protects your privacy.
For more information please review: Privacy Notice – McMaster Family Health Team
