Our Virtual Collaboration Tools

The EasT-FPN supports collaboration and communication within the family practice community of East Toronto at large using a number of tools, discussed below. This page here shares how we collaborate more generally.

Plain Old Email

Email is great because essentially everyone has access to it. We’ll use it for newsletters, and as a fall-back option when nothing else fits.

At the moment, only EasT-FPN staff have eastfpn.org email addresses. Eastfpn.org email addresses are not available to the community at large.

Real-time Chat
via Slack

The EasT-FPN has created a Slack community. For those unfamiliar, it’s …

  • similar to group texting

  • similar to WhatsApp, WeChat

Slack is a great option to support faster, more real-time communication between people who are working together on projects, or for more informal discussions generally. There’s a vision that Slack will support a community that is better engaged with each other. To be clear, patient information should never be transmitted through the EasT-FPN’s Slack community.

The ETHP is working on the adoption of a separate tool to facilitate secure communication, this tool may eventually replace the role of Slack.

Anyone in the East Toronto Family Practice Network community is welcome to join Slack and to start connecting virtually. That includes physicians, clinic managers, and office staff. Submit a request for an invite link below.

Project Mgmt
via Trello

The EasT-FPN has adopted Trello to support its projects. If you’re someone that likes lists, making notes, keeping track of your goals… Trello is for you.

Access to the EasT-FPN Trello makes sense for those who are actively working on specific projects. Submit a request for an invite link below.

Once you sign up, make sure to explore it via a laptop or desktop. It’s very confusing if you’re access it for the first time on a smartphone.

A Public Website

The EasT-FPN has a public website (what you’re on).

The goal is for this website to be a community resource; a place for people to refer to; to learn more; to better understand the EasT-FPN and the work being done.

Instead of a highly controlled website, the vision is that the public website is dynamic and updated regularly to ensure it’s up to date, accurate, and useful.

If you’re working on something and you’d like your page updated, please submit your request below and the website team will copy and paste it in for you!

A Members Only Website

A separate members only website will facilitate access to content that should be made available only to official members of the East Toronto Family Practice Network.

As of February 2020 there’s nothing there, but … eventually! Once the EasT-FPN has a formal membership process, access will be granted to official members.

Document Editing via Google Drive

The EasT-FPN has adopted Google Drive as its collaborative “productivity platform”. In addition to being a place to store documents and files, it provides tools to actually create and edit documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.

For those working on active projects, you may be invited to collaborate via Google Drive. Invites will be sent to your email address, which will need to be linked to a Google Account. You do not need to use Gmail; any email address can be used to create a Google Account.

Once you have access, the preference and request is that you create documents directly in Google Drive, instead of uploading Microsoft Office documents.