Atlantic Healthcare Collaboration Workshop Puts Focus on Chronic Disease

News Release
Health and Community Services
June 10, 2014

Improving Health Outcomes Benefits Families, Communities and Entire Province

A two-day workshop led by the Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement focusing on Sustaining and Spreading Chronic Care Improvement is being held in St. John’s. Teams of health professionals from across Atlantic Canada have come together to share health care improvements that are making a difference for people living with chronic diseases such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder, diabetes and mental health conditions.

“Collaboration among our peers and colleagues within Atlantic Canada and here in our province helps build environments for best practices to be adapted, better utilized and refined. The workshop is helping set in motion new ideas that will support and complement our province’s chronic disease prevention and management policy framework Improving Health Together. Our framework focuses on creating a supportive system for people living with chronic disease to lead healthier lives and prevent complications and progression of disease. By working together, our collective efforts will benefit all provinces, our residents and future generations.”
– The Honourable Paul Davis, Minister of Health and Community Services

The Atlantic Healthcare Collaboration Workshop brings together 17 Atlantic regional health authorities, focusing on creating a patient and family-centred approach to managing chronic diseases, promoting sustainability of health systems, and building a network of organizational, regional and provincial teams that work together to develop, implement and sustain improvement initiatives. For information on improvement projects being undertaken by this province’s four regional health authorities, please see the backgrounder below.

“It’s only fitting that St. John’s is the venue for a gathering of every health authority from all four Atlantic provinces, focused on making health care better for patients and families living with chronic diseases, as this is where the Atlantic Healthcare Collaboration took root in 2012. It has been a unique vehicle for cross-provincial sharing of proven approaches to common challenges. Working together, we can turn local improvements into system-wide changes that tackle chronic diseases.”
– Maureen O’Neil, President, Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement

The Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement is a non-profit organization dedicated to accelerating health care improvement by working with provinces, territories and other health care partners to promote efficient health care that delivers better outcomes. With a $10 million annual federal investment, the organization supports the development of innovations that could save provincial-territorial health care budgets over $1 billion per year.

For more information on Atlantic Healthcare Collaboration please visit www.cfhi-fcass.ca/whatwedo/Collaborations/AtlanticHealthcare.aspx

For information on chronic disease or to find a copy of Improving Health Together: A Policy Framework for Chronic Disease Prevention and Management in Newfoundland and Labrador please visit www.health.gov.nl.ca/health/chronicdisease/cdcontrol.html

QUICK FACTS

• The Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement is holding a two-day workshop is in St. John’s, focusing on Sustaining and Spreading Chronic Care Improvement.
• The workshop brings together 17 Atlantic regional health authorities to share health care improvements that are making a difference for people living with chronic diseases.
• • The workshop and its initiatives support the Provincial Government’s actions outlined in Improving Health Together: A Policy Framework for Chronic Disease Prevention and Management in Newfoundland and Labrador

– 30 –

Media contacts:

Heather MacLean
Director of Communications
Department of Health and Community
Services
709-729-1377, 697-4137
heathermaclean@gov.nl.ca

Paulette Roberge
Senior Communications Specialist
Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement
613-728-2238 ext. 288, 613-790-1070
paulette.roberge@cfhi-fcass.ca

BACKGROUNDER
Atlantic Healthcare Collaboration Improvement Projects for Newfoundland and

• Eastern Health has initiated a project that focuses on strengthening collaboration at transition points in diabetes care by improving patient navigation and further adopting clinical practice guidelines throughout the region.
• Central Health is developing and implementing a Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder program that focuses on health promotion, education and the uptake of clinical practice guidelines across the system.
• Western Health’s improvement team is working with the regional diabetes management working group to complete a baseline audit of the seven local diabetes teams, with the goal of improving self-management support for clients with diabetes in the region.
• Labrador-Grenfell Health has undertaken two improvement projects:
  • The first project was carried out in partnership with the Innu Nation, the Nunatsiavut Government, and Memorial University focused on working with communities to increase understanding of local factors related to suicide, improve the continuum of care, and develop community-specific suicide prevention and mental health promotion programs.
  • The second initiative, in partnership with the Nunatsiavut Government, NunatuKavut, and Innu First Nations sought to integrate lifestyle and activity-based clinical interventions with community supports to improve the control of diabetes and reduce the incidence and rates of complication.

  NT5