1. Access to care: improving access to team-based care
- Date: Thursday, September 19, 2019
- Concurrent Session A
- Time: 2:30pm-3:15pm
- Room: Pier 8
- Style: Presentation (information provided to audience, with opportunity for audience to ask question)
- Focus: Practical (e.g. Presentation on how to implement programs and/or practices in the team environment)
- Target Audience: Clinical providers
Learning Objectives
- How the needs of seniors in smaller communities are identified and addressed
- Collaborating with interdisciplinary teams improves the health needs of seniors in rural settings
- Programs that are the most successful in our community
- Lessons learned… things that did not work so well
- Implementation into your practice
Summary/Abstract
Living in a rural town is wonderful, we may not have all the services that larger centers have to offer, but that makes our programming all the more unique. We were able to survey our population in a Health Needs Assessment in 2015 and identify areas that needed improvement. We now have several collaborative groups that meet monthly to address these needs. My role as Geriatric Program Coordinator has been to implement programs relevant to our seniors needs. We have implemented the Health Link philosophy of care, Primary Care Memory Clinic, Advance Care Planning, Minds in Motion, Stay on your Feet exercise program, Situation Table, Interagency meetings, and an Annual Seniors Expo and Active Living Fair. As a result of these programs we are able to reach seniors throughout their lifespan. We are able to offer programs that fit with individuals’ lifestyles, not asking them to conform to our programs but to meet them where they are at. We have had great success with engaging our population and making positive changes. We believe that as primary care providers it is our role to reach out to our community and assist them where they are at. Be that, finding an exercise program to improve balance, talk about who their substitute decision maker is, determine a baseline for cognition, or help navigating our ever-changing system. Seeing our seniors as an entire person not just a diagnosis, has improved their care, their faith in the system and ultimately their life.
Presenter
- Jolene Binda, Geriatric Program Coordinator RN, Wawa Family Health Team