Health Talk

HEALTH TALK

New position supports hospice care

The regional hospice education co-ordinator position was co-developed by the palliative care steering committee and local hospice agencies to identify current professional and volunteer education activity, identification of gaps and a review of future capacity and planning for future needs within the South East Ontario region.
We are pleased to welcome Siobhan McArdle to this role. Siobhan comes with extensive experience in oncology and adult education. She has her Master’s degree in supportive and palliative care.
In this role, McArdle will primarily support the training of staff and volunteers in all regional community hospice agencies and work in collaboration with all hospice palliative care education programs throughout southeast Ontario in building and sustaining hospice palliative care accredited education capacity across the region.
McArdle will identify education gaps in the region and, in collaboration with the palliative-care community, will develop plans and initiatives to address the needs. In partnership with the South East LHIN, she will develop metrics to measure the value and impact of existing resources and plan for appropriate expansion and updating of current provision to meet projected requirements.
Other projects will include enhancing communications, avoiding duplication of effort, promoting community engagement, building a robust web presence with online communities of practice and interest, supporting collaborative community messaging, developing collaborative education material and designing other educational activities.
Submitted by Southern Frontenac Community Services.

Portal provides better transitions

The South East Health Integrated Information Portal will soon assist the primary-care sector in ensuring seamless transitions of information between providers.
Launched at the recent Primary Health Care Forum, SHIIP, which was developed in collaboration with the South East LHIN and Kingston Frontenac Lennox & Addington Public Health, will allow patient data from the hospital, including admission, clinical and discharge information to quickly flow to the patient’s primary-care provider, with safeguards in place to ensure that patient-information privacy is still being protected.
This technology also identifies people who have complex health needs, and determines if those patients would benefit from enhanced care co-ordination through the Health Links approach.
Health-care providers in the South East LHIN will benefit from the features SHIIP has to offer, such as easy access to a web-enabled version of the existing co-ordinated care plan currently used by Health Links to allow the ability to create, edit and share the patient’s care plan between providers. The providers will gain relevant and timely access to information to improve the co-ordination and delivery of patient care.
Beginning in 2013, SHIIP took a multi-phase approach. KFLA Public Health built the first model of the SHIIP in partnership with Kingston General Hospital, Brockville General Hospital and the South East LHIN Data and Information Technology Leads.
The Pilot Phase, launched in 2014, consisted of technical development and testing with data flow from Kingston General Hospital and Hotel Dieu Hospital and being accessed by primary care. With the work of these organizations and the South East LHIN acting as the project sponsor, technical requirements were defined for SHIIP and the components aligned with primary care and hospital needs for information, integration and co-ordination.
As the SHIIP develops, data from all hospitals, community care access centres and other providers will be integrated and the potential for all sectors to utilize the information to improve clinical care will be explored. Currently, primary-care providers can access their patient data from KGH, BGH, Hotel Dieu Hospital, Perth and Smiths Falls and Lennox & Addington County General Hospital.
Submitted by the South East Local Health Integration Network.

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The regional hospice education co-ordinator position was co-developed by the palliative care steering committee and local hospice agencies to identify current professional and volunteer education activity, identification of gaps and a review of future capacity and planning for future needs within the South East Ontario region.
We are pleased to welcome Siobhan McArdle to this role. Siobhan comes with extensive experience in oncology and adult education. She has her Master’s degree in supportive and palliative care.
In this role, McArdle will primarily support the training of staff and volunteers in all regional community hospice agencies and work in collaboration with all hospice palliative care education programs throughout southeast Ontario in building and sustaining hospice palliative care accredited education capacity across the region.
McArdle will identify education gaps in the region and, in collaboration with the palliative-care community, will develop plans and initiatives to address the needs. In partnership with the South East LHIN, she will develop metrics to measure the value and impact of existing resources and plan for appropriate expansion and updating of current provision to meet projected requirements.
Other projects will include enhancing communications, avoiding duplication of effort, promoting community engagement, building a robust web presence with online communities of practice and interest, supporting collaborative community messaging, developing collaborative education material and designing other educational activities.
Submitted by Southern Frontenac Community Services.

The South East Health Integrated Information Portal will soon assist the primary-care sector in ensuring seamless transitions of information between providers.
Launched at the recent Primary Health Care Forum, SHIIP, which was developed in collaboration with the South East LHIN and Kingston Frontenac Lennox & Addington Public Health, will allow patient data from the hospital, including admission, clinical and discharge information to quickly flow to the patient’s primary-care provider, with safeguards in place to ensure that patient-information privacy is still being protected.
This technology also identifies people who have complex health needs, and determines if those patients would benefit from enhanced care co-ordination through the Health Links approach.
Health-care providers in the South East LHIN will benefit from the features SHIIP has to offer, such as easy access to a web-enabled version of the existing co-ordinated care plan currently used by Health Links to allow the ability to create, edit and share the patient’s care plan between providers. The providers will gain relevant and timely access to information to improve the co-ordination and delivery of patient care.
Beginning in 2013, SHIIP took a multi-phase approach. KFLA Public Health built the first model of the SHIIP in partnership with Kingston General Hospital, Brockville General Hospital and the South East LHIN Data and Information Technology Leads.
The Pilot Phase, launched in 2014, consisted of technical development and testing with data flow from Kingston General Hospital and Hotel Dieu Hospital and being accessed by primary care. With the work of these organizations and the South East LHIN acting as the project sponsor, technical requirements were defined for SHIIP and the components aligned with primary care and hospital needs for information, integration and co-ordination.
As the SHIIP develops, data from all hospitals, community care access centres and other providers will be integrated and the potential for all sectors to utilize the information to improve clinical care will be explored. Currently, primary-care providers can access their patient data from KGH, BGH, Hotel Dieu Hospital, Perth and Smiths Falls and Lennox & Addington County General Hospital.
Submitted by the South East Local Health Integration Network.