2026 Agenda

Like all rural hospitals, Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC) has resource restraints, yet also need provide exception and efficient care to patients. To better understand how resources were being used, and improve capacity from within, they built an in-house real-time, predictive decision-making platform to be used as a strategic asset.

Built on Microsoft Fabric, PRHC’s homegrown analytics platform, Peregrine, securely ingests and governs data from 12 internal and external sources, applies cleansing/validation and a medallion architecture, and delivers clinician-ready dashboards that support day-to-day operational and clinical choices, including ED flow prediction and scheduling needs, hospitalist turnaround time, and lab utilization.

Key Session Takeaways Include:

• Start where value is visible and where gains can be made quickly
• Build trust through co-design, create agile leaders, and form clinician-led working groups
• Design for scale from day one by documenting a deployment pattern (roles, governance, security, metrics) that other sites can adopt without duplicating infrastructure
• Prepare for new iterations, improvements and learnings to improve the system and model it on your particular needs

Rural and northern communities across Canada face growing pressures: rising complexity, limited access to primary care, and increasing emergency department use by patients who simply have nowhere else to turn. The Grey Bruce Ontario Health Team, Brightshores Health System, and Serefin Health have strategically partnered to launch a one-year proof-of-concept to address two critical gaps: supporting patients with complex or high care needs living at home and improving access for patients unattached to a Family Physician or Nurse Practitioner.

This session shares the design and early implementation of a structured care coordination model built around three referral streams: hospital discharge and primary care referral for high-needs patients, and community self-referral for unattached patients. Together, these partners are testing a practical, scalable approach that strengthens transitions, supports self-management, and reduces avoidable system strain in rural settings.

You’ll leave with insights into how collaborative, community-based care coordination can be implemented quickly, evaluated rigorously, and adapted for other rural regions across Canada.

Key Session Takeaways Include:

• How structured care coordination focusing on self-management, continuity of care, and system navigation can support complex and high needs patients living at home to age in place
• Practical strategies to support unattached patients in geographically large, under resourced rural communities where walk-in clinics and timely access to care may not exist
• Shared learnings from launching a rural multi-partner proof-of-concept, including referral design, evaluation planning, and scalable partnership models

Health systems are increasingly recognizing anti-Indigenous racism as a significant patient safety issue and seeking guidance in their efforts to improve cultural safety. The launch of the Cultural Safety Pathway (the Pathway) is an opportunity to provide health systems with practical supports on their journey to address anti-Indigenous racism and improve cultural safety.

Cultural safety can only be defined by the recipient of care, and health systems must work in relationship with First Nations, Inuit and Métis to address this issue. The Pathway guides health systems to meaningfully engage with First Nations, Inuit and Métis in the completion of an organizational assessment and co-creation of an organization-specific action plan. Health system organizations and institutions will be invited to access the Pathway online once it is available

Key Session Takeaways Include:

• The goal of the Pathway too and how it can be implemented to improve cultural safety
• Hear how The Ottawa Hospital developed an Indigenous Patient and Family Advisory who guided the development and implementation of a quality improvement project
• How to seek additional support along your journey and how to apply for the Cultural Safety Learning Collaborative (fall 2026-fall 2028), and what it will entail

In this interactive session, we’ll explore how to use the Indigenous Communications Toolkit from Design de Plume to strengthen cultural respect, equity and clarity in their visual and verbal messaging. Whether you’re creating websites, campaigns, social content or daily internal comms, this session gives you practical tools and guiding principles to help you communicate in ways that honour Indigenous communities.

You’ll move from hesitation to reflection and from reflection to purposeful action. Along the way, we’ll explore evolving language, recognize common pitfalls and learn how to center respectful collaboration in your communication process.

Join us to discover how inclusive communications builds trust, respect and lasting relationships.

Key Session Takeaways Include:

• Identify evolving or sensitive terminology and phrasing when communicating with Indigenous communities
• Integrate respectful consultation practices into process workflows
• Apply key guidelines from the Toolkit to actual communications decisions

When you are a rural or remote hospital, you become the only source of urgent healthcare delivery. And when that hospital has low morale, poor patient outcomes, serious gaps in clinical staffing, and becomes fodder for local news, culture change becomes not only critical, but necessary for quality and safe healthcare delivery.

In a small rural hospital in Alberta, a dedicated team embarked on a massive cultural transformation, leading to improved patient outcomes, lower vacancies for nursing and specialty services, and improved staff retention and morale, increased patient activity and satisfaction. How did this occur, without any new budget allocations?

Key Session Takeaways Include:

• The importance of tackling problems head on, and which problems were fueling the root cause of the hospital’s failings
• How to manage strong personalities during big changes, and how to push ahead with important changes, even at the leadership positions
• How has the hospital changed now, where are we seeing gains, and what lessons have been learned

First Nations communities across Northwestern Ontario continue to face longstanding health inequities, barriers to accessing care, and gaps in public health and healthcare service delivery. Guided by the vision and priorities established through the Anishnabe Health Plan, the Sioux Lookout First Nations Health Authority (SLFNHA) has worked to develop integrated, community-driven, and culturally grounded approaches to health and well-being that reflect the needs and priorities of First Nations communities.

This session will explore the development of the Approaches to Community Wellbeing public health system and highlight community-based models of care across SLFNHA health services.

Key Session Takeaways Include:

• How the Anishnabe Health Plan helped shape a First Nations-led, integrated approach to community wellbeing and health system development
• Examples of coordinated and community-based models of care designed to improve access, continuity, and equity in remote First Nations communities
• How Community Health Workers, travelling multidisciplinary teams, and community partnerships help strengthen local capacity and care closer to home
• The role of community-driven research, health status reporting, and quality improvement in supporting advocacy, planning, and system transformation

Access to mental health services in rural and remote communities is challenging. With fewer providers – particularly specialists, and long distances to receive care, we are seeing many families forgoing care. In some cases, with tragic outcomes.

This discussion will address some of the initiatives in play, and how they can be implemented in any region in the country.

Key Session Takeaways Include:

• Addressing the stigma in rural communities, and how practitioners are managing it
• Addressing privacy concerns, especially when everyone knows each other
• The role of virtual care and it’s transforming families for the better

The Health Standards Organization (HSO) is continuing work on a new National Standard of Canada on Cultural Safety and Humility (CAN/HSO 75001:2026). The standard outlines requirements and accountabilities for health and social service organizations to collaboratively design, deliver, and evaluate culturally safe services with and for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Peoples and communities, and to address Indigenous‑specific racism in service delivery.

This standard responds to longstanding calls to action from First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities, governing bodies and organizations from coast-to-coast-to-coast and builds on the work done in partnership with the First Nations Health Authority in BC on the British Columbia Cultural Safety and Humility Standard.

Key Session Takeaways Include:

• What was the development process for the standard, and how were First Nations, Inuit, and Métis individuals integrated into the design
• What are some of the key themes that arose, and how were they addressed
• How will the standard be used to assess organizations’ progress in providing culturally safe care for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Peoples

Caregivers are ordinary people who provide physical and emotional support to a family member, partner, friend, or neighbour- they are invaluable to patient care. Yet 1 in 3 caregivers face barriers in accessing the support they need, increasing their risk of becoming patients themselves.

These barriers can be intensified for the estimated 800,000 caregivers who live in rural or remote communities. Their caregiving experience can be impacted by many factors, including lower availability of health care and social support, transportation challenges, financial hardship, and limited internet access.

Key Session Takeaways Include:

• What is the current caregiving landscape in Ontario, drawing on the findings of OCO’s rural and remote work
• What are some light-lift strategies for identifying and connecting caregivers to supports they need
• Insight into some of the ways that OCO can help support caregivers and service providers across Ontario as we work toward our collective goals.