Ocean eReferrals to Streamline and Enhance Access to Care in Nova Scotia
Wednesday, June 28, 2023 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm via Microsoft Team
By the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
- Explain the benefits of electronic referrals to primary care providers, referral recipients and patients
- Describe the electronic referral and central intake / provincial queue pathways in Nova Scotia for surgical and diagnostic imaging services
- Apply practices for optimizing Ocean eReferrals in electronic medical records
Presenters:
Dr. Ajantha Jayabaranthan is a family doctor currently practicing in an urban, community based practice in Peninsular Halifax, which models collaborative care across medical and complementary disciplines of healthcare. She completed her undergraduate and medical training at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario and moved to Halifax to complete her Family Practice residency at the Dalhousie Faculty of Medicine. She is College of Family Physicians of Canada certified and received her Fellowship designation in 2001. She also completed the University of Toronto Five Weekend Fellowship in 2000 and won a Janus award for her research project; 360 degree evaluation of Medical Teachers. During the years following her training she worked at the Halifax Infirmary Emergency Department while practicing at the Penhorn Mall Medical Clinic and building a practice at the Cowie Family Medicine Clinic in Spryfield. She practiced community & life span based family medicine, obstetrics, nursing home care and house call enhanced comprehensive services. She also developed her skills as a clinical administrator, teacher/trainer for undergraduate and postgraduate residents in Family Medicine and scholarly activities. She was involved in one of the earliest pilot sites for Shared Mental Health Care in Nova Scotia at the Cowie Clinic and also pioneered the development and utilization of Electronic Medical Records and Electronic management of Clinical care at this clinic. She continues to hold her appointment of Assistant professor at Dalhousie University's Faculty of Medicine and has worked closely with the Dalhousie Department of Health Informatics. She has presented extensively on medical matters through programming with ATV/CTV, CBC TV and various Nova Scotia radio programs.
Lindsay Bertrand is a proven healthcare leader who is passionate about leveraging innovative solutions to improve health outcomes, patient/provider experience, and deliver exemplary care to all Nova Scotians. She has been the Chief Clinical Information Officer for Nova Scotia Health since 2022. In this role, she has worked to advance technology-enabled practice and worked closely with the Chief Medical Information Officer on clinician-centered readiness for OPOR. This work has been informed by her background as a clinician. A Registered Respiratory Therapist and Certified Clinical Anesthesia Assistant by training, she spent 15 years in front line, patient-facing care, both as a clinician and as a manager at IWK Health. Additionally, Lindsay holds a Master of Health Informatics from the University of Waterloo.
Dr. Sean Christie is a neurosurgeon at Nova Scotia Health and a Professor at Dalhousie where he heads the Neurosurgical Spine Program and serves as Vice-Chair and Research Director for the Division of Neurosurgery. In 2022 he became the first surgeon in Canada to utilize a surgical robot for a spinal procedure. Drawing on leadership experience and participation within the Rick Hansen Spinal Cord Injury Registry (RHSCIR) and the Canadian Spine Outcomes Research Network (CSORN), Dr. Christie facilitated the Inception of the Canadian Neurosurgical Resident Collaborative (CNRC) and was elected to serve as the President of the Canadian Spine Society in 2017. He maintains a keen interest in research in the areas of spinal cord injury (clinical and basic science), neurotrauma, minimally invasive spinal surgery, motion preserving spinal surgery and clinical outcomes following spinal surgery. Recognizing the impact that healthcare has upon global climate change, in 2020 Dr Christie applied, and was appointed, Co-Lead for the Healthy Populations Institute Flagship Project: Creating Sustainable Health Systems in a Climate Crisis. He also serves on the Board of the Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care and is an executive, and founding, member of CASCADES, which supports Canada’s healthcare community in transitioning towards high-quality, low-carbon, climate resilient care.
Dr. Greg Hirsch is a Cardiac Surgeon and Senior Medical Director for the Perioperative Services Network at Nova Scotia Health, where he helped spearhead the launch of the National Surgery Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) at 11 hospital sites in 2017. Dr. Hirsch served as the Division Head of Cardiac Surgery for Dalhousie University and Nova Scotia Health from 2005 to 2018. He attended Mount Sinai School of Medicine and went on to train in general and cardiothoracic surgery at Mass General Hospital before receiving formal research training in vascular biology and joining the Division of Cardiac Surgery at Dalhousie University in 1995. While initially focused on translational basic science work in chronic vascular rejection, he simultaneously established an outcomes research effort and established a continuous quality improvement program using individual surgeon and anesthetist outcome reporting to drive physician engagement in process improvement. Intrigued by the prevalence of older patients referred for cardiac surgical intervention and aware of the pioneering work in frailty of Dr. Ken Rockwood at Dalhousie, Greg went on to demonstrate for the first time the impact of frailty on adverse outcomes in cardiac surgery. In the past several years Dr. Hirsch’s research has focused exclusively on health services research with particular attention to frailty measures and shared decision-making implementation among frail patients referred for cardiac surgery.
The Pregnant Patient...Don't Panic-We're in it Together! with Dr. Lynne McLeod
Wednesday, June 14, 2023 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm via Microsoft Teams
Dr. Lynne McLeod is originally from Charlottetown, PEI. She completed her residency training in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Dalhousie University and subsequently completed a Fellowship in Maternal Fetal Medicine at the University of Toronto.
She is an Associate Professor at Dalhousie University and is a Maternal Fetal Medicine specialist working at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax. She held the role of Division Head of Maternal-Fetal Medicine at the IWK for the past 10 years and has recently moved onto other administrative roles including Physician Lead of Prenatal Screening and Diagnosis in the FATC at the IWK and is the EHS Medical Oversight Physician for Obstetrics. She is a Safety Coach at the IWK, and is actively involved in undergraduate and postgraduate education in Obstetrics and Gynaecology
Lynne’s clinical and research interests include prenatal diagnosis, trauma in pregnancy, multiple gestation, medical education, and quality improvement.
At the conclusion of this activity, participants will be able to:
- Understand the importance of team communication for improved outcomes in the obstetric patient
- Understand tools and resources to improve care of the pregnant patient in non-obstetrical units
- Appreciate strategies and resources available when an unexpected or planned delivery occurs in a non-obstetrical unit.
Approach to Behavioural and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia
Wednesday, June 7, 2023 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm via Microsoft Teams
Dr. Maggie Lovett is a Geriatrician at Nova Scotia Health based in Lunenburg, NS. Originally from Halifax, Dr. Lovett completed both her undergraduate and medical degree at Dalhousie University. She completed internal medicine residency training at McMaster University, conducting research at the GERAS Centre for Aging Research, before completing her geriatric medicine subspecialty training at Dalhousie University. Dr. Lovett is passionate about promoting positive aging and improving quality of life for older adults.
At the conclusion of this activity, participants will be able to:
- Review patient, care partner, and environmental factors contributing to BPSD
- Apply knowledge of these underlying factors to non-pharmacological management of BPSD
- Review indications and evidence for pharmacological management of BPSD
Understanding flow - why is it exhausting? with Dr. Jan Sommers
Wednesday, May 10, 2023 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm via Microsoft Teams
Dr. Jan Sommers is an emergency physician, site specialty lead in emergency medicine at Colchester East Hants Health Centre, and Northern Zone Department head of emergency. She is a passionate teacher, positive psychology enthusiast, and self-taught productivity nerd. Her professional interests include mentoring wellness in medicine, leveraging technology and innovation to improve access to health care and deepening her knowledge and practice of emergency medicine. She is happily married to fellow physician, Dr Ryan Sommers and is the very proud mom to 4 children and an outlandish golden retriever.
Presentation objectives:
At the conclusion of this presentation the learner will be able to describe a novel framework for the concept of system and emergency department flow and how it differs from the conventional framework.
At the conclusion of this talk, the learner will understand the definition of complex problems and how this definition aids in the conceptualization of interventions for system flow.
Following this presentation, the learner will be able to apply the concept of a matrix approach to understanding challenges to flow and apply it when considering leading and lagging indicators of quality interventions.
Ensuring QI Improves Joy in Work with Guest Speaker Dr. Christopher Hayes
Wednesday, May 3, 2023 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm via Microsoft Teams
Dr. Chris Hayes is the Chief Health Information Officer and a critical care physician at Trillium Health Partners (THP). He is an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto. Chris joined THP in 2018 where he co-led the implementation of our health information system.
Formerly, Chris was the Chief Medical Information Officer at St Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton. Prior to that he served as the Medical Director of Quality and Performance at St. Michael’s Hospital. From 2008 to 2015 Chris served as the Medical Officer for the Canadian Patient Safety Institute. He was the 2013-14 Canadian Harkness/IHI Fellow in Health Care Policy and Practice where he spent a year studying high performing healthcare systems.
Chris is a recognized leader in patient safety and quality improvement, working with regional, national, and international organizations, and has received multiple distinctions and awards.
Presentation objectives:
1. Understand the state of joy in the healthcare workforce
2. Reflect on QI as a potential contributor to burnout
3. Learn how to employ improvement strategies that lead to advancing joy in work
Dr. Hayes developed the Highly Adoptable Improvement model and tool to address adoptability and sustainability of quality improvement initiatives. Learn more here.
