2022 Agenda

Covid has forced us to work more remotely, challenging our delivery models. And while there were many challenges along the way, we saw many successes too. One of those challenges is leading teams with reduced face-to-face interactions.

Post Covid, we expect more remote working environments will be the norm, even as restrictions ease. We must therefore look at our leadership and management experiences and build models that reflect the new reality.

Key Session Takeaways Include:

• What where the biggest leadership and delivery challenges over the past two years?
• What adjustments were made, and how has leadership style changed?
• As you make adjustments, how to correct errors quickly to ensure long-term success?

Meeting Future Nurse Staffing Challenges in Home and Community Care

The world is changing, and so too are the community health challenges we are facing. As front-line caregivers and administrators, we need to be aware of and prepared for the future challenge of ensuring we have the nurses we need to provide timely and effective home and community care.

Key Session Takeaways Include:

• What are the nursing challenges facing home and community care?
• What creative solutions are we seeing in other jurisdictions, including internationally?
• Attract nursing to community care – and need incentives (design to be equally attract to community care (rewards for this?)

With demographic projections showing a higher proportion of senior Canadians, paying attention to their expected needs is paramount for health care leaders. This is the impetus for greater attention on aging in place models, and one New Brunswick is committed to, and this initiative is showing the highest satisfaction rate in the country.

Key Session Takeaways Include:

• What are the key factors driving home care, and the critical success factors
• How can a successful program be implemented to ensure high satisfaction scores
• Where are the greatest challenges, and what can be done to overcome them

Access to health care when and where people need it is an ongoing challenge for our rural and northern communities. Inter-professional primary health care teams are working to address this by helping patients receive the care they need in their homes and communities.

By effectively moving care into the community in rural and northern regions, it will help ensure a stronger future for the health of populations, aligned with better outcomes, better patient satisfaction, improved provider experience and better cost-effectiveness.

Key Session Takeaways Include:

• Exploring mobile integrated health – a highly relevant, adaptive strategy that enables mobile medical care in a community to ease emergency department visits, reduce hospital admissions, and expand long-term care options for vulnerable and underserved populations.

Paramedical services have been used in Canada for over 10 years, with many successful adoptions of the program. One of the most appealing aspects of the program is its flexibility. While it can encompass many different goals, it is still largely intended to meet local community needs.

Because paramedicine has been around for so long, and adapted to so many different jurisdictions, there are many lessons to be learned. This panel will look at various paramedical models, assess their challenges and successes, and provide guidance for how other jurisdictions can adopt this widely use model for home and community care.

Key Session Takeaways Include:

• How can paramedicine be deployed effectively in both urban and rural jurisdictions
• How to address the challenges that exist, whether in legislation, funding, or resources
• How to address the myriad opportunities, from palliative care to vaccinations to street outreach programs
• How effective paramedicine programs are keeping patients out of emergency, decreasing transport calls, and improving outcomes and quality of life
• How to adopt a paramedicine program that meets local needs

The pandemic has proven the importance of having virtual care as an integrated part of the health care system to aid in care delivery and address system challenges. As way to respond to the national mandate to accelerate efforts to meet the health care needs of Canadians through virtual care, Healthcare Excellence Canada (HEC) and Canada Health Infoway (Infoway) partnered to develop the Virtual Care Change Management Program— a program designed to develop and expand virtual care across Canada while also shifting care closer to home.

The program involved two areas of programming: i) Clinician Change Management Project- aimed at sharing tools and resources to enhance virtual care delivery, use and optimization for clinicians; ii) Patient Digital Health Literacy Project- aimed at improving digital health literacy for Canadians.

In this session, speakers Haley Warren, from Healthcare Excellence Canada, and Morenike Akinyemi, from Canada Health Infoway, will showcase the lesson learned from the implementation of the Virtual Care Change Management Program.

Key Session takeaways Include:

• Discover lessons learned from the Virtual Care Change Management Program, including the Clinician Change Management Project and the Patient Digital Health Literacy Project
• Discuss the challenges and barriers to delivering safe, equitable and high-quality virtual care in Canada
• Reflect on the future opportunities to expanding and maintaining virtual care in Canada

In 2013, British Columbia established a dedicated and independent advocate for seniors, to monitor systemic issues, provide referrals and advocate for the best interest of seniors in BC.

Collaborating with service providers, as well as health authorities and providers, the office works to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of health outcomes. Taking a holistic approach, the Advocate monitors and advises on health care, housing, income supports, community supports and transportation.

The office has even a council of advisers, with seniors from diverse backgrounds, ages, geographical areas and cultures, to provide advice on what they see is in the best interest of seniors.

Key Session Takeaways Include:

• The impetus for creating the office and parameters of the Advocate
• What were the early challenges and successes, and the response from seniors and care givers
• How partnerships, collaborations and coordination was established, and services delivered
• How taking a multipronged approach was essential to improving quality of life and delivering consistent long term health outcomes
• How to establish a similar office across the country

Rapid Access Addiction Medicine (RAAM) clinics provide low-barrier, same day access to addiction medicine services to clients in need. Leveraging the ‘window of opportunity’, RAAM services meet clients where they are at and provide potentially life-saving pharmacotherapy, addiction counselling and referrals to community resources.

Objectives

• Recognize the utility of rapid access addiction medicine services
• Identify the advantages of integrating addiction medicine into primary care

Care givers play an increasingly important and vital role in community and home care. They are called upon to perform many of the important functions well-trained nurses and sometimes doctors must do.

And while this will – and should – continue, how to optimize the environment to ensure long-term success, while mitigating the potential for burnout, is becoming increasingly complex.

Key Session Takeaways Include:

• How can we more effectively include care givers into our circle of care
• Where are the biggest opportunities and challenges
• How can we protect care givers from burnout as we increasingly rely on them

The Covid pandemic amplified the need for robust, accessible, and responsive community care infrastructure. Community health care plays a unique role across Canada, and we need to recognize not just the care we provide, but also the way that care is delivered.

From social inclusion to chronic disease management and mental health and addiction, community health plays a vital role in keeping our neighbourhoods healthy.

Key Session Takeaways:

• How community care in Parkdale responded to the Covid crisis in their neighbourhood
• How they ramped up their response capabilities to meet increased demand across the health spectrum
• How they are tackling drug poisonings and addictions

In the rush to vaccinate as many people as possible, community engagement was at the forefront of the messaging – and the action. And while some communities were open and eager for vaccinations, there were also communities that were hesitant, especially at-risk communities.

In Scarborough, local hospitals, communities, and grassroots groups came together during the pandemic to get vaccines to the most vulnerable.

Key Session Takeaways Include:

• How organizations and communities can shift from silos to ecosystems
• Why – and how to engage grassroots community members to be full partners
• What were some of the key learnings and emerging opportunities going forward

Across Canada we are seeing higher rates of addiction and poorer mental health.

In Calgary, The Alex has established street teams and outreach services to provide care and support.

Key Session Takeaways Include:

• What care options are being provided, including foot patrols and mobile health
• What are the unique challenges we are seeing in addiction responses
• How can we ensure services are provided to ease the acute situations
• How are communities providing opportunities for patients to return to health