The BC College of Family Physicians (BCCFP) is calling on the provincial government to improve primary care conditions and streamline systems to reduce paperwork through digital improvement.
The call comes on BC Family Doctor Day, with medical professionals pushing for supports to enable physician-led team-based care.
Dr. Jennifer Lush, a family physician and president of the BCCFP, says the organization represents all of the province’s 8,000 family physicians. She says representatives will meet with elected officials in the legislature on Monday.
One of the main sticking points relates to the amount of paperwork doctors are required to complete.
“We are requesting that they reduce the administrative burden faced by family physicians by streamlining our digital systems so that they talk to each other,” she said.
“That would allow us to be more efficient and spend more time caring for patients.”
This isn’t the first push calling for streamlined administrative procedures as a means of decreasing doctor burdens. In January, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) released a report highlighting the amount of time doctors are losing to administrative tasks, detracting from patient care.
According to the CFIB, doctors across the province are spending three million hours per year on “digital red tape,” reducing the amount of time they can spend seeing patients.
For the average doctor, the report says, this amounts to almost 10 hours a week and 200 hours a year.
When the report was released, Kalith Nanayakkara, CFIB’s senior policy analyst for B.C., said eliminating the red tape could free up an equivalent of more than 1,400 full-time doctors across the province.
Related articles:
Lush echoes this point, saying family doctors can spend between 25 and 50 per cent of their time in front of their computers. She says there is a clear solution to this issue.
“We’re asking for the government to commit to a provincial electronic medical records consolidation strategy, and the specifics of how that gets rolled out can be something that’s navigated over time,” she said.
“But upfront, we would like to see commitment to it, as it’s beneficial for physicians. It’s going to free us up so that patients have better access to care. And ultimately, that’s going to benefit patient outcomes and patient safety across the province, whether you’re rural or urban.”
The organization is also pushing for improvement in care delivery for rural doctors. According to the BCCFP, emergency rooms across the province were shut down for the equivalent of 686 days between 2023 and mid-April 2025.
“We’ve all seen a lot about rural emergency room closures lately, and those are family doctors on the front lines,” she said.
“We’re asking the government to support increased efforts to train and recruit and retain rural family physicians.”
The group says there has been some success using Real Time Virtual (RTV) support, which has helped 168 rural and First Nations communities. This improves both patient outcomes and physician retention.
“Sustaining RTVs and expanding rural training opportunities in medical education are cost-effective investments that will reduce pressure on emergency rooms and better enable patient access to primary care,” the BCCFP said.
Lush says training a doctor in a rural area greatly improves the chance they will stay in that area.
“The sooner we can expose a medical student to a rural community and the inspiring work that is done by family physicians in these small towns, whether that be in the realm of community primary care, emergency room work, maternity care…the sooner we can expose learners to that, the sooner they’ll consider it as a potential career choice for themselves.”
They are also pushing for support to encourage the recruitment and retention of foreign-trained physicians.
The BCCFP says it looks forward to continuing to collaborate with the provincial government, health authorities, and other stakeholders.
“Patients deserve champions in family medicine,” it said.
“Family physicians are committed to standing up and standing strong for a healthcare system that works for all.”