"When you're finished changing, you're finished." - Benjamin Franklin

Expert voices from The Change Foundation & CPRN roundtable: podcast interviews offer advice to Ontario on integrating care for seniors

Want to hear directly from some of the best go-to people in the country on how Ontario can advance integrated care for seniors? Tune in or download the latest video podcast interviews from The Change Foundation and Canadian Policy Research Network's (CPRN) roundtable. Read senior CPRN Research Fellow Margaret MacAdam's commentary, Slow but Steady Progress in Home Care Sector and listen to her video interview. Laying out the essential elements of good models of care, she commends Ontario's Aging at Home strategy but points out that the province needs a single entry point to community services with a wider basket of supports such as meals, day programs and housekeeping to improve care and reduce costs. Roundtable speaker Réjean Hébert, Dean of Medicine, University of Sherbrooke, Quebec, compares Quebec's internationally studied SIPA and PRISMA health integration projects for seniors. Katie Hill, Director, Home and Community Care Programs, BC Ministry of Health Services, explains BC's Integrated Health Networks creating new collaborations between family physicians, nurse practitioners, health professionals, and community agencies to better coordinate care.

The interviews offer insight and advice for Ontario policy makers on how to improve integrated care for seniors, many with chronic conditions, as they move between hospital, primary and community care and interact with an array of health services and providers. Tune in to tune up. The invitational forum built on CPRN Senior Research Fellow Margaret MacAdam's paper, Frameworks of Integrated Care for the Elderly: A Systematic Review.

The Commonwealth Fund & The Change Foundation to partner on US-Canada Policy Exchange: first forum slated for spring 2010 to focus on innovations in primary care

The Change Foundation is delighted to report that it is partnering with the prestigious American health policy think tank, The Commonwealth Fund, to co-sponsor a series of Canada-US health policy conferences. The first forum, slated for the spring of 2010 in New York, will concentrate on "Innovations in Primary Care Policy and Delivery Systems." The two-day meeting will convene approximately 30 American and Canadian senior political and policy leaders to compare health system performance in the two countries, analyze shared challenges, and provide a platform for cross-national exchange of ideas on strategies to achieve a high performing health-care system.

Change Foundation President & CEO Cathy Fooks says: "This inaugural collaboration can help establish a cross-national dialogue on primary care, looking at the challenges each system faces with an aim to identify policies and strategies to transform primary care to more integrated care, compare the range of available policy levers, and consider overall implications for quality and costs. We appreciate the confidence The Commonwealth Fund has shown in The Change Foundation, and we look forward to fostering our relationship over the years to advance solutions to improve the quality of our health-care system."

Papers and case studies commissioned for the meeting will be prepared and revised for publication. It is expected that insights gained from the meeting will inform and help catalyze US and Canadian thinking on health-care reform.

New talent & leadership at The Change Foundation board as strategic plan renewal and ambitious work plan roll-out begins

A new Chair for The Change Foundation and fresh talent joined an already strong Board of Directors in June at the Foundation's AGM. See the new board line-up with Larry Chambers and Susan Pigott and new Chair, Scott Dudgeon. The board will work with CEO Cathy Fooks as the Foundation rolls out an ambitious work-plan for 2009/2010 and develops a strategic plan for 2010-2013 that builds on Contemplating the way we change, Changing the way we think (2007-2010). We'll put together an external sounding board from the health-care community to help us hone our thinking. Complementing this central planning is a parallel website review exploring options for greater online coherence and interactivity with our audiences.

Workplan highlights related to the Foundation's integration research agenda (link to integration agenda) include: a second health integration report geared to Queen's Park that synthesizes all our research to date and recommends options for action to make Ontario's health system more integrated and its services more coordinated around the patient; a second international case study gleaning lessons from Denmark's health system, following the first on England; a new partnership with the Community Providers Association Committee (CPAC) to survey provider perspectives on integration with a report to be released in 2010; and a MOHLTC funded project to understand funding levers and incentives that impact the provision of integrated care for patients along the care continuum.

On the QI front, the Foundation will build on a current research partnership on home and community care with University of Waterloo researcher John Hirdes to produce information and analysis in 2010 on the needs and pressures of informal caregivers in our system. Building on our Having Their Say, Choosing Their Way partnership with OACCAC mapping the hospital-to-home transition, the Foundation will focus on building QI capacity in the community for the elderly with chronic diseases. The Foundation will soon be announcing the parameters of a new project with the Canadian Patient Safety Institute on adverse events in home care. See our previous work in this area with Paul Masotti.

In addition to the Foundation's exciting new Canada-US Health Policy Exchange developed in partnership with The Commonwealth Fund (see above), the Foundation will announce a timely and targeted speaker series for leading political and policy health-care decision-makers to drive informed public discussion in pre-election Ontario.

CHQI update: CHQI takes Aim & FLO continues to be feted

Ready, set and Aim for better QI. On September 18, The Change Foundation and CHQI will host the invitational AIM for the Summit: Better Health, Better Care, Better Value targeted at LHIN leadership and staff and Ministry of Health staff. The event builds on last winter's Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Triple Aim conference in the US attended by over 30 LHIN leaders. The follow-up Toronto event is designed to embed QI learning into Ontario health system planning and integration processes. Participants will hear about the value of the Triple Aim framework from international experts with local examples from three leading LHIN early adopters. "This event will help Ontario leaders start connecting LHIN mandate and priorities with the framework's core principles of patient experience, cost per capita, and population health," says CHQI Executive Director Paula Blackstien-Hirsch.

On another front, the Flo Collaborative may have officially wrapped up this spring but its QI legacy continues to be recognized. In early June, OACCAC (link to conference) gave their Award for Excellence for Systems Partnership to the SE CCAC and Kingston General Hospital's Flo Collaborative.

The Change Foundation, P.O. Box 42, 200 Front Street West, Suite 2501, Toronto, ON, M5V 3M1, Phone: 416.205.1353, Fax: 416.205.1440

Feedback appreciated. Please contact Anila Sunnak (asunnak@changefoundation.com).

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