*"Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success."* - Henry Ford -
		Patients/caregivers weigh in on what should change in hospital to 'home' transitions: project triggers quality improvements in CCACs & hospitals After listening to elderly patients and caregivers describe what works -- and doesn't -- during the move from hospital to home or long-term care, and learning from an analysis of all the steps and decisions in those transitions (247 for hospital to home;160 for hospital to long-term care), hospitals and community care access centres (CCACs) involved in a quality improvement project in two regions in Ontario have introduced changes to ease patient transitions and provide better value and better care. Patients applauded the impulse to improve and provided valuable input on key challenges during these life-changing transfers. Read about the issues raised - and the early efforts to address them -- in a commentary released today by The Change Foundation. It is a companion to two reports (Report 1, Report 2) detailing the project, which was undertaken with the South East CCAC and Quinte Health Care and Toronto Central CCAC and Toronto Western. The reports highlight the need to improve communication, update information systems, streamline processes, and clarify roles and responsibilities. The work also points out changes made to date. The project, called Having Their Say & Choosing Their Way: helping patients and caregivers move from hospital to 'home', is funded by The Change Foundation in partnership with the Ontario Association of Community Care Access Centres.
		The Change Foundation engages on engagement with LHINs; Commentary calls for support for "mission critical" work to guide health-care change In a commentary released today, The Change Foundation says that community engagement (CE) is an essential ingredient in implementing health-care change that is understood, accepted and supported in communities across Ontario. A look at community responses to health-care change across the province speaks to the need for the health-care community to get the timing and the tenor of its conversations with the public right. The Foundation, in collaboration with the Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs), started its own conversation with the Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) last year, collaborating on a spring symposium and workshop, Community Engagement & the LHINs: Truth & Consequences. The symposium summary includes fresh data from a survey of LHIN officials taken before the symposium and shares the results of what surfaced from real-time voting on such critical questions as the priorities and audiences for community engagement. The symposium, which drew leadership from all the LHINs and featured CE experts (listen to audio clips and read presentations) facilitated discussion and group work, was held as the LHINs were planning how best to engage their communities in the development of their 2nd Integrated Health Service Plan, due the end of November. See also: North West LHIN Honoured with International Public Participation Innovation Award - Share Your Story, Shape Your Care and www.EpicOntario.ca, Engaging People. Improving Care.
		New series - INTEGRATION INCUBATOR Ottawa's Village Saint-Louis to be vibrant model of healthy aging and community partnership Welcome to the first installment of Integration Incubator, a periodic series of stories about promising initiatives to nudge us closer to health services built around the needs and realities of people and populations and drawing upon health professions who work across sectors (instead of at cross purposes!) We start with Ottawa's Bruyère Continuing Care and the Perley and Rideau Veteran's Health Centre proposed Village Saint-Louis Supportive Housing Project. It offers a fresh vision on integrating care for seniors -- a topic explored in an earlier symposium co-sponsored by The Change Foundation and CPRN. The "outside the box" Village is a mix of supportive housing, strong informal social networks and formal services across the health-care continuum, ensuring patients receive the right level of care at the right time. Bruyère took the lead because of its deep expertise in seniors' health care, and to help tackle systemic issues which will help such symptoms as too many alternate-level-of-care patients. If funding comes through, the welcome Village will be ready to house about 200 elderly by spring 2011. Read the feature with accompanying Q and A with Bruyère CFO, Daniel Levac.
		Triple Aim forum; Quality leadership; Emerging improvements: good things come in threes Better health, better care, better value: At Aim for the Summit September 18, hosted by CHQI and The Change Foundation, senior teams from all 14 LHINs shared their early learning as they apply the three-fold Triple Aim approach to their mandates to improve population health through service integration. "I really have come to appreciate having a forum in which LHINs can share that is moderated by third party experts," remarked James Meloche of the Central East LHIN. A week later, CHQI's Leadership for Performance Excellence program held the first of three networking meetings. Executive teams at seven hospitals and two CCACs are using the 16-month action-based learning program to strengthen their capability to pursue quality as a core business strategy. CHQI is one of several partners delivering Ontario's Emergency Department Process Improvement Program (ED PIP) which was in the news October 1 for its success in tackling wait times. Read all about ED PIP and other groundbreaking projects in CHQI's first annual report.