June 5, 2012
Health Council of Canada. (2012). Progress Report 2012: Health care renewal in Canada. Retrieved from http://healthcouncilcanada.ca/tree/ProgressReport2012_FINAL_EN.pdf Monitoring progress on the accords—the 2003 First Ministers’ Accord on Health Care Renewal1 and the 2004 10-Year Plan to Strengthen Health Care2—is a key element of the Health Council of Canada’s mandate. But the challenge is to determine how […]
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May 2, 2012
“In October 2011, the Health Council of Canada hosted a national symposium on patient engagement. The plan was simple enough: we wanted to explore how good ideas have been, and could be, turned into action. As we began to develop the agenda for the day, we learned there is no shortage of Canadians—both within and outside the health system—with much to say on the matter. The over 160 people who attended collectively represented the Canadian health care system: patients; representatives from patient organizations; federal and provincial governments, regional health authorities, and local health integration networks; health system administrators; health care providers; and researchers.
We heard many perspectives. Patients told us what it is like to navigate the often intimidating and confusing Canadian health care system. Health care providers gave us an insider’s view of how they would improve this same system for their patients, and planners and administrators told us how they’re working to make patient centred care a reality. Our intention was three-fold: to raise awareness of the potential of patient engagement as an instrument of change; to spark a national dialogue that would build support for patient engagement; and to help those who are entering this burgeoning field of system-level change to gain insight into tools and experiences that are available to either start or advance their patient engagement work. To keep the momentum from that day going, we developed this commentary and proceedings report to inspire governments, health care workers, and patients to take up patient engagement in their own ways.
For the Health Council of Canada, our work didn’t end with the symposium. We will keep what we learned in October fresh in our minds, and embed it into all that we do. Patient engagement at all levels happens when we ask ourselves, “Is this the right thing to do so that patients and their caregivers have a voice?” We hope all symposium participants are doing the same.
We can learn from one another, share what others are doing well, and, more importantly, not be afraid to ask them how they did it. The ideas for change are out there. By sharing what we learn from those actively involved in health care, and putting that knowledge into practice, we can start to turn ideas and experience into a better reality for all Canadian patients.
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April 25, 2012
“across the nation. Although they each share a common goal, historically they have operated independently of each other. However, new opportunities are emerging that could bring the two sectors together in ways that will yield substantial and lasting improvements in the health of individuals, communities, and populations. Because of this potential, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Health Resources and Services Administration asked the IOM to examine the integration of primary care and public health.
The interactions between the two sectors are so varied that it is not possible to prescribe a specific model or template for how integration should look. Instead, the IOM identifies a set of core principles derived from successful integration efforts – including a common goal of improving population health, as well as involving the community in defining and addressing its needs. The time is right for action, and the principles provided in this report can serve as a roadmap to move the nation toward a more efficient health system. The challenges in integrating primary care and public health are great – but so are the opportunities and rewards.”
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April 23, 2012
“Ten years ago, in September 2002, the National Steering Committee on Patient Safety delivered its report urging the development of the Canadian Patient Safety Institute and enhanced efforts to identify and reduce the risk of patient harm across the healthcare system. Two years later, the Canadian Adverse Events Study (Baker et al. 2004) provided data on patient safety in acute care – data that reported levels of harm far greater than most suspected. Today, virtually all Canadian healthcare organizations have goals around improving the safety and quality of care, and many have implemented reporting systems that identify patient safety incidents and track the implementation of recommendations to reduce hazards. In only a decade, patient safety has been transformed from the esoteric interest of a small number of champions to an essential component of healthcare performance across Canada. Today, patient safety is a fundamental prerequisite for the healthcare system: quality is impossible unless patients are protected from unintended harm.”
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April 20, 2012
“The safety of maternity services is of paramount importance. Maternity teams face many challenges in delivering safe care to mothers, babies and families. The King’s Fund launched an independent inquiry into the safety of maternity services in 2006. The report from that inquiry, Safe Births: Everybody’s business, made a series of recommendations about how the safety of maternity care could be improved.
Building on the recommendations from our inquiry and in partnership with the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Royal College of Midwives, the NHS Litigation Authority, Centre for Maternal And Child Enquiries and the National Patient Safety Agency, The King’s Fund launched the Safer Births Improvement Programme, providing customised support to 12 multidisciplinary maternity teams in England. This toolkit shares the experiences and lessons from those teams.
Improving Safety in Maternity Services: a toolkit for teams is organised around five key areas for improvement in maternity care on which the teams focused:
- teamworking
- communication
- training
- information and guidance
- staffing and leadership.
Each section begins with a brief explanation on how focusing on improvements in each area can contribute to improved safety. It then highlights some of the experiences of the maternity teams who focused on this issue and their key learning points. There are also short summaries of tools that can be used to improve safety. These provide a brief guide to how to use the tool and signpost further resources. Where available we have included examples or templates that can be used or adapted for local use. Finally, we provide more information about service improvement and the tools and techniques that can be used.”
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April 16, 2012
“Sustainability seeks to balance and simultaneously optimize environmental, social and financial concerns. Sustainability in healthcare represents a particularly challenging undertaking as it necessarily encompasses the wide variety of facilities, operations and activities in a typical healthcare organization. This exploratory study examines the organizational approaches of eight healthcare systems with relatively successful sustainability initiatives.
The organizations studied have embraced sustainability as a core organizational value, and consequently have committed significant resources and personnel to support their sustainability efforts. Nonetheless, they have realized significant financial benefits from the efforts. Environmental resource management — especially energy and waste — serves as the initial and often central focus of many sustainability initiatives. Improving energy efficiency is associated with reduced operating costs, as is increasing recycling and more carefully managing all waste streams. Managing energy and waste more sustainably was, for these health care organizations, critical for building organizational capabilities that could be applied to other areas, such as environmentally responsible purchasing and food management. Most of the organizations created new positions or hired new people to help manage and coordinate the sustainability initiatives. The sustainability coordinators are charged with identifying focus areas, developing sustainability-related goals, tracking performance, integrating environmental and social concerns into organizational processes, identifying significant external resources and helping to build important sustainability-related organizational capabilities.”
Posted in READ Portal, Reports & Papers | Tagged with Health care reform, Health planning, Hospital administration | No Comments
April 13, 2012
“The theme of this year’s progress report is community. As we compiled the stories you’ll read in the following pages, we were struck by an overwhelming gratitude, and a little pride, that IHI has the privilege to act as convener for all the communities described in this report. The word “community” derives from Latin- cum meaning “with” or “together,” and munis meaning “gift” – and the IHI “community” is indeed our common gift. In the last few years, health care has been held as examples of what’s not working in modern society. While the systems we work in are still fragmented, still costly, and in many instances, still unsafe, improving health care can be our gift. As 2011 ends and 2012 begins, health care is in a unique and perhaps historic position to improve society as a whole. A redesigned health care system can help us improve our health, balance our budgets, and strengthen our communities. We know how to do it – the stories in this report are just a handful of the countless examples of inspiring progress. What’s needed now is to leverage the collective strength of our community so that all patients, everywhere, can benefit.”
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March 20, 2012
“Policies about health systems can have profound impacts on citizens, patients, health professionals, and managers. For physicians, for example, the impacts can include changing their scope of practice (a governance arrangement), how they are paid (a financial arrangement), where they provide care (a delivery arrangement), and how their practices are supported in providing the types of care that citizens and patients value (an implementation strategy). Contextual factors are extremely important in shaping decisions about health systems, and policy makers have to work through all the pros and cons of different options before developing new policies on health systems.
In this paper, which is the second of a three-part series on health systems guidance, by considering issues raised during meetings of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Task Force on Developing Health Systems Guidance, we:
- Explore the links between health systems guidance development and policy development at global and national levels;
- Examine the range of factors that can influence policy development.
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March 5, 2012
“Social inequalities in health are again the focus of our annual report. Our intention is clear: to measure the progress made and identify the best ways to reduce these inequalities. This framework is fitting since the fight against social inequalities in health and the prevention of chronic diseases—themes that are closely linked in many respects—are the two priorities set out in the regional public health plan defined for the next five years.
To put it briefly, “keeping our community healthy” is the maxim that underlies all our activities and interventions. In this area, the public health department has many accomplishments. All sectors are active in vaccination, prevention, information and
awareness raising, surveillance and screening. Their goal is to improve the health of
all Montrealers in collaboration with the health and social services centres.
However, not everything in health is about care and prevention. Social inequalities in
health result from socioeconomic disparities among individuals and neighbourhoods,
in terms of their environments. For this reason, reducing inequalities requires the
participation of many sectors of society. To reach this goal, concrete actions must be
taken, starting with those most likely to reduce, or even eliminate, poverty and to
support childhood development from the very beginning.”
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February 27, 2012
“With the goal to improve healthcare services and delivery, Stanton Territorial Hospital in the Northwest Territories (NWT) invited the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation (CHSRF) to explore opportunities to collaborate in the redesign and improvement of the health system. This article describes the NWT’s efforts to transform its healthcare delivery to more appropriately care for people living with chronic diseases. It also sets the context for the initial meeting between the NWT and CHSRF and the collaborative journey that continues, with the bringing together of 40 health system managers, policy makers and clinicians, along with CHSRF staff and guest faculty, with a shared vision to redesign care to better meet the needs of people living with chronic diseases in the territory.”
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