News & Views
June 2024, Issue 1
NEXUS PRACTICE EVENTS: CONNECT CARE CAN HELP OUR FUTURE!
Benefits of Connect Care
Connect Care captures information for patient/resident care in one place across healthcare team members. We were pleased to hear benefits of Connect Care, including improving the quality of care, enhancing patient safety, facilitating better coordination among healthcare providers, increasing efficiency, empowering patients, supporting public health monitoring, and ensuring data security. In Alberta, Connect Care has had positive impacts on reducing medication errors.
- Connect Care is now being rolled out in Alberta Health Services Continuing Care (Carewest, Capital Care) and some Home Care Zones.
- We heard about feedback from seasoned nursing users that the system helps them focus on care and relationships with patients/residents, since work processes have been streamlined.
At Alberta Innovated Inventures, we were encouraged to hear about initial dialogue beginning to expand the use of Connect Care beyond Alberta Health Services!
Watch for future NEXUS Practice Events, a chance to connect with colleagues about opportunities for your professional success!
YOUR FINANCES—BE AHEAD OF TROUBLE!
7 Steps Toward Better CPP/QPP Claiming Decisions: Shifting the Paradigm on how we help Canadians
National Institute on Ageing, Toronto Metropolitan University
When to claim benefits from the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) — or its Quebec counterpart, the Quebec Pension Plan (QPP) — is one of the most important retirement financial decisions Canadians will make. This 8-part series aims to shift the paradigm toward more informed decision-making. Its purpose is simple: to propose new ways to help Canadians understand and benefit from the value of delaying CPP/QPP benefits. https://www.niageing.ca/cpp-qpp
Trusted Contact Person
In the Spring AAG Mag, we had an article about new guidelines for appointing a Trusted Contact Person. This is a person you allow your financial firm to contact in limited circumstances.
The Canadian Securities Commission notes. “Your registered financial adviser is required to ask you to name a Trusted Contact Person (TCP).” https://www.securities-administrators.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/CSA_TCP101_What_is_a_Trusted_Contact_Person.pdf.
Jill Chambers, AAG Boad Member, offers this advice:
‘Turns out a TCP is only recommended for financial advisers and only for investment accounts. Where do you think the elder financial abuse occurs? At the local bank!
Case example: Greg is 81 years of age, visually, hearing, and mobility impaired. He lives in a long-term care facility. He walked into his local bank with his companion and withdrew $8,000 in cash, which was unusual and dangerous behaviour.
Supposedly, the teller asked a few questions. His responses were not entered into the bank system as it was “personal” information. Greg returned to his care facility to his unlocked room and hid the cash. I have only been able to recover $6,420.
With a TCP on file, the teller could have called, texted, or emailed to discuss this matter. The Canadian Bankers Association is the regulator for banks.
If you feel that banks should have a Trusted Contact Person on file, you can express your views by emailing the Canadian Banking Association at: inform@cba.ca or calling 1-800-263-0231.
Jill Chambers, Aging in Place Supports https://aginginplacesupports.ca/
HEALTH SYSTEMS AND HEALTHCARE: FOLLOW THE LATEST RESULTS AND THINKING IN ALBERTA!
Health Quality Council of Alberta (HQCA) Facility-based Continuing Care Survey Report April 1, 2024
In collaboration with Alberta Health and Alberta Health Services, the HQCA conducted surveys of residents and family members between July 2022 to March 2023 in facility-based continuing care across Alberta. The information collected and analyzed gives voice to residents living in these facilities and their families, and is shared with each site, Alberta Health, operators, and leaders in continuing care to help inform improvements. Ultimately, these results should guide reflection and help identify quality improvement opportunities.
Highlights: Facility-based Continuing Care resident and family experience (2024) https://hqca.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/FBCC-Highlights_Resident-and-Family-Experience-Survey-April.pdf
Facility-based Continuing Care Resident Experience Survey Report (2024) https://hqca.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/FBCC-Resident-Experience-Provincial-Report-Body-Appendices-Website_FINAL.pdf
Facility-based Continuing Care Family Experience Survey Report (2024) https://hqca.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/FBCC-Family-Experience-Provincial-Report-Body-Appendices-Website_FinalApr17.pdf
Health System Structure and its Influence on Outcomes: The Canadian Experience
University of Calgary: Braden J. Manns; Stephanie Hastings, & Tom Noseworthy and University of Toronto: Greg Marchildon
Healthcare delivery systems in Canada are structured using three models: individual institutions, health regions, and single provincial systems, usually with smaller geographic zones. The comparative ability of these models to improve care, outcomes, and the Quadruple Aim is largely unstudied. We reviewed Canadian studies examining outcomes of provincial healthcare delivery system restructuring. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/08404704241248559
VALUING CARE AND FAMILY CAREGIVERS
Supporting the caregivers who support your patients
Marvin Polis Editor-in-Chief, Alberta Doctors’ Digest
Alberta Doctors Digest: Social prescribing is an intervention where physicians connect patients’ caregivers with needed social and community care to help them deal with the crisis in caregiver mental health. This intervention provides caregivers with access to support groups, which can decrease social isolation and alleviate some of the pressures on the health care system. Services can include connecting caregivers to community resources or caregiver coaches working remotely throughout Alberta. https://add.albertadoctors.org/issues/may-june-2024/how-support-caregivers-who-support-your-patients/
Is It Care, Or Is It Work? Cultural Mindsets of Care Work in the United States
How we discuss and perceive caregiving and care work affects how care is structured in our society, impacting families, communities, and the economy. Addressing the current norms of work and caregiving will require a substantial change in public attitudes. The Frameworks Institute in the US highlight five key trends in public perceptions of care and caregiving and how they can shape your communication strategies.
Five Trends in Public Thinking about Care Work https://www.frameworksinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/FWI_WS_Care-Report-V3_1.pdf