Health system

Collaboration and scope of practice

• We’re seeing more and more patients with multiple, complex conditions being treated in multiple and complex systems of care.
• We need to encourage more knowledge-sharing (innovations) and sharing of evidence to support and spread change.
• We need “the roots and the rain” to advance new models. We also need the right people around the table to feed and sustain them.
• We need to make the case for change to funders, administrators/system managers and other physicians.
• We need to better teach physicians (both those in training and those in practice) how to advocate.

DOWNLOAD THE PRESENTATION SLIDES: “Cross-Specialty Collaboration: What, Why and How,” Dr. Camilla Wong, St. Michael’s Hospital

Impact of technology

• We have technology available to us that we’re not using fully or effectively.
• Industry is going ahead and outpacing the medical profession, especially where there is money to be made.
• Governments need medical leadership to inform choices related to return on investment, impact, privacy and ethics, etc.
• We must consider whether we are protecting the role of the physician in the face of technology, harnessing technology to improve access to care, or both.
• The revolution is here – we can’t stick our heads in the sand.

Breaking down barriers to access

• Access is a problem (e.g. cancelled or postponed treatments, therapies or surgeries; displacing patients; discontinuity of care; excessive wait-times; service disparities between rural and urban environments, etc.)
• There is a current misalignment between resources and needs (e.g. workforce, access to practice resources, etc.)
• Funding models don’t support best models of care.
• We already have some solutions (e.g. collaborative models of care in Ophthalmology) but we need to
  • monitor scopes of practice,
  • prepare physicians for evidence-informed advocacy — better explain why we need more resources,
  • be accountable to patients, to one another and to funders.

DOWNLOAD THE PRESENTATION SLIDES: “Where can fellows find alliances to improve access to specialty services?” Dr. Robert La Roche, Professor, Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Division of Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus, Dalhousie

General themes (not previously mentioned)

• There is broad recognition that the medical profession has a leadership role to play in each of these areas (advocacy was a common theme).
• We need to continue to collect and champion data for evidence-informed advocacy.
• Not all topics affect all disciplines equally or in the same ways (e.g. the impact of technology on high-tech disciplines versus low-tech/high-touch disciplines).