Nova Scotia Health is pleased to resume the Quality & Patient Safety Rounds by physicians for physicians in Fall 2023 and Spring 2024! The sessions are targeted towards all physicians who provide inpatient and Emergency Department care. Each session will run for an hour followed by 30 minutes of questions and discussion.
Fall 2023/Winter 2024 Session Recordings (find previous sessions at the bottom of page)
Shifting from “Teach & Tell” to “Collaborate and Empower”: Creating a culture of self-management across the healthcare system through the Behaviour Change Counselling Development Program
Wednesday, February 7
7:00 to 8:30pm via Zoom
By the end of the presentation, participants will be able to:
- Identify key components of the 2024 Patient and Family Choice Quality Award Project
- Acquire an understanding of the Behaviour Change Counselling Development Program impact on Physician and NP improved competency and practice change.
- Comprehend the Primary Health Care Strategic culture shift to promoting Behaviour Change & Self-Management Support and how this may impact their practice settings.
About the Presenters
Jacklynn Humphrey is a registered dietitian at Nova Scotia Health (NSH) where she has most recently been working with the Primary Health Care and Chronic Disease Management Network to support the development and implementation of the Behaviour Change Counselling Development Program (BCCDP).
Jacklynn has worked as a registered dietitian for more than 25 years in a variety of settings including private practice, research, inpatient and outpatient clinical nutrition, cardiac rehab, and with the Community Health Teams. Jacklynn has a special interest in supporting behaviour change and worked closely with the Behaviour Change Institute at NSH as a peer leader. She has been recognized as a skillful clinician in supporting self-management and behaviour change. She works with primary health care providers to incorporate these skills into their daily work.
Dr. Darya Kryzskaya is a family physician practicing in Upper Tantallon. She obtained her MSc and MDCM degrees from McGill University. In addition to her practice, she runs a small procedures clinic and holds a faculty appointment at Dalhousie University. She is also part of the Medical Council of Canada content development workgroup where she focuses on creating and editing content for qualifying examinations for Canadian and international medical graduates.
Heather Beaton has more than 20 years of experience working in Mental Health & Addictions and Primary Health Care Chronic Disease Management and Wellness teams at both IWK and Nova Scotia Health. As an OT she has filled the roles of Case Manager, Team Lead, Mental Health and Wellness Coordinator, Manager Primary Health, and Operations Consultant. She is a certified Mental Health First Aid Instructor with the Mental Health Commission of Canada and Change Management Practitioner with ProSci. Heather is passionate about working with health care staff to create system change and supporting health behaviour change with Nova Scotians. She is the coordinator of the Behaviour Change Counseling Development Program which is the 2024 Patient and Family Choice Quality award winner.
Pam Talbot has a Masters in Science (Community Health and Epidemiology) from Dalhousie University and recently used her skills to support the evaluation of the Behaviour Change Counselling Development Program (BCCDP).
Pam has worked as an epidemiologist with the Diabetes Care Program of Nova Scotia for the last 17 years and with the Primary Health Care and Chronic Disease Management Network for the last 2 years. Pam has a deep passion for turning data into information that can be used to tell stories. She works with colleagues across the health system to make information about health and the health system more accessible to a wide variety of audiences.
The recording is available here.
Care of the Agitated Pediatric Patient
Wednesday, November 29
7:00 to 8:30pm via Zoom
By the end of the presentation, participants will be able to:
- Discuss key aspects of the Involuntary Psychiatric Treatment Act (IPTA) in Nova Scotia as they relate to pediatric emergency patients
- Understand how to approach acute agitation in different pediatric presentations
- Examine guidelines for emergency management anxiety and agitation in emergency department
About the Presenters:
Dr. Alexa Bagnell is the Chief of Psychiatry at IWK Health and Professor & Head, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Dalhousie University. She completed medical training at Dalhousie University and post graduate training at Harvard University, returning home to start her career at IWK in 2003. She is co-founder of the treatment of anxiety group (TAG) program at IWK Health in 2005, and in 2013, established the first obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) clinic in Eastern Canada at the IWK to provide evidence-based treatment and consultation services for Halifax and Maritime youth with OCD.
Her leadership focus is on child and youth mental health system continuous improvement initiatives to improve access, inclusivity, and quality of care for children and youth with mental health and addictions disorders in our region. Alexa is a strong advocate for mental health education and resources and frequently presents in schools, community and in the media to increase knowledge about mental health and to promote help seeking in young people.
Dr. Laura Miller is the clinical pharmacy specialist in mental health and addictions at the IWK. She is lucky enough to work on a large interprofessional team to improve the lives of youth and young adults living with mental health and substance use issues.
Laura obtained her Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy from Dalhousie in 2009 and her PharmD from the University of Toronto in June 2019. Before going to graduate school, Laura worked as a community pharmacist for nine years in downtown Halifax. In her graduate program, she completed pharmacy rotations across the country in addictions and mental health care. Laura lives in Sackville with her boyfriend, her step-kid, and their cat, Frankie.
Recording available soon.
Addressing Functional Somatic Disorders
Wednesday, November 1
7:00pm to 8:30pm via Zoom
By the end of the presentation, participants will be able to:
- Describe the burden of functional somatic symptoms in NS Health
- Explain 4 ways emotional factors can result in somatic symptoms
- Describe the evidence base for a form of short term talking therapy in functional somatic disorders
Slide handout is available here.
About the Presenter
Dr. Allan Abbass is a Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology and Director of the Centre for Emotions and Health at Dalhousie University in Canada.
He completed Medicine at Dalhousie University and a residency in Family Medicine and has worked as a family physician and emergency physician. He completed a Psychiatry residency at the University of Toronto dedicating his career to teaching and researching the impact of emotions on both mental and physical health. After 3 years teaching in outpatient psychiatry at UBC he returned to Dalhousie leading psychotherapy training in Psychiatry and later as Director of Education.
Over the past 25 years he has become a leading teacher and researcher in the area of Short-term Dynamic Psychotherapy, having provided over 400 invited presentations and over 300 publications including his first 2 books Reaching Through Resistance: Advanced Psychotherapy Techniques and Hidden from View: clinician’s guide to psychophysiologic disorders.
Bariatric surgery: is access to care still an issue in this new era of weight loss drugs?
7:00 to 8:30pm via Zoom
By the end of the presentation, participants will be able to:
Describe the common bariatric procedures and their long-term risk benefit profile.
Understand the rates of obesity in Canada and how accessing care varies greatly across provinces.
Discuss the local ongoing and planned actions aimed at improving safety and access to care.
About the Presenters
James Ellsmere MD MSc FRCSC FACS is the head of the Division of General and Gastrointestinal Surgery at the QEII Health Sciences Centre where he also serves as the co-director of the Nova Scotia Health Bariatric program and the director of the Minimally Invasive Surgery fellowship. He is an associate professor of surgery at Dalhousie University. He received his electrical engineering degree, medical degree and surgery residency from Dalhousie and clinical fellowships in Minimally Invasive Surgery and Therapeutic Endoscopy from Harvard Medical School. He also received a Masters in Medical Informatics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research program is focused on developing and evaluating novel techniques to improve the management of gastrointestinal and metabolic disease.
Tom Ransom MD FRCSC is a staff endocrinologist at the QEII Health Sciences Centre where he serves and as the co-director of the Nova Scotia Health Bariatric program. He is an assistant professor of medicine at Dalhousie University. Prior to the study of medicine, he obtained undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Toronto in nutrition with the focus of his master’s research and thesis on the effects of diet on cholesterol and diabetes control. He received his medical degree and internal medicine residency at University of Toronto and his clinical fellowship in endocrinology at Dalhousie. He enjoys his teaching responsibilities and is active in both basic and clinical research with an emphasis on the metabolic syndrome which includes diabetes, obesity, and dyslipidemias.
Kara Evers NP is a Nurse Practitioner with the Bariatric Program at the QEII Health Sciences Centre. Kara completed her Bachelor of Science in Nursing and her Master of Nursing at Dalhousie University. She worked as a Registered Nurse in the Intensive Care Unit at Dartmouth General Hospital and then as a primary care Nurse Practitioner at Musquodoboit Valley Family Practice. It was while working in primary health care that she developed an interest in managing chronic diseases including metabolic syndrome, diabetes, hypertension, and obesity. Kara combines her interests in education and health promotion by supporting patients in achieving healthy weight loss.
Earn 1.5 CME Credits for Each Session
This one-credit-per-hour Group Learning program meets the certification criteria of the College of Family Physicians of Canada and has been certified by the Continuing Professional Development Office of Dalhousie University for up to 1.5 Mainpro+ credits.
This event is an Accredited Group Learning Activity (Section 1) as defined by the Maintenance of Certification Program of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, and approved by Continuing Professional Development, Dalhousie University. You may claim a maximum of 1.5 hours (credits are automatically calculated).
Through an agreement between the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and the American Medical Association, physicians may convert Royal College MOC credits to AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. Information on the process to convert Royal College MOC credit to AMA credit can be found at www.amaassn.org/go/internationalcme.
In keeping with CMA Guidelines, program content and selection of speakers are the responsibility of the planning committee. Support is directed toward the costs of the course and not to individual speakers through an unrestricted educational grant.
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About the Nova Scotia Health Quality and Patient Safety Rounds
The Nova Scotia Health Quality and Patient Safety Rounds for Physicians was developed after the Nova Scotia Health’s Quality Improvement Team were seeking an opportunity to share the results of recent quality reviews with a physician audiences. Our audience and interest in these sessions have since grown and has now become an annual series for physicians to learn about quality improvement initiatives in the inpatient care setting. The purpose is to improve patient outcomes around quality and safety.
Aligning a quality improvement approach in clinical care to best practices or clinical standards also contributes to improved system outcomes – things like improved patient flow, improved communication between providers, and health care provider morale.
The series has since expanded to include other clinical practice topics of high importance and identified through evaluation surveys distributed after sessions.
