Reconnect and Reimagine: moving forward together
The AFHTO 2022 Conference program is built around 4 core themes.
ConFERENCE Theme Descriptions
Download a printable PDF of the theme descriptions here.
- It takes a team: collaboration inside and out
- Health equity at the centre
- Sustainable solutions to primary care problems
- Mental health and addictions
1. It takes a team: collaboration inside and out
If you want to go far, go together. The latter half of a well-known proverb, this statement has become so popular because it can be applied to so many situations, including Ontario’s healthcare system. Well-integrated teams, whatever their configuration, get better results with better collaboration. But how can we harness these relationships to ensure we get the results we need, especially given the disconnect felt within teams during this challenging time? How do we ensure we reconnect and become even stronger?
Topics of interest include:
- Intra-team cohesion
- Building team resiliency after a traumatic event
- Reducing sources of friction in community collaboration
- Developing the Patient Medical Neighbourhood/Ontario Health Teams (OHTs)
2. Health equity at the centre
In supporting the treatment of patients, we must remember that they are people first, who often navigate complex realities that impact their health in multiple ways. Medication prescribed doesn’t work if they can’t afford to buy it and telling them they need to rest when they can’t take sick days because they’re afraid of losing their job is well meaning but falls short. To maintain and improve patient health means acknowledging and affirming their lived experience as a central practice in treatment, especially if we wish to protect relationships that can truly last an entire lifetime.
Topics of interest include:
- Supporting the needs of marginalised communities
- Internalising lessons learned in EDI and anti-racism journeys
- Indigenous health
- Treating the whole person in the context of their lived experience
3. Sustainable solutions to primary care problems
Pilots come and go and good ideas founder like ships on the shoals of resistance to change. Occasionally, someone demonstrates workable solutions to seemingly intractable problems, but they aren’t adopted across the spectrum of care. To break the cycle and move beyond this version of Groundhog Day, primary care teams need to champion and insist on integrating sustainable solutions to their problems, reconnecting with partners across the health system.
Topics of interest include:
- Addressing systemic barriers
- Scalable digital and virtual innovations
- Ensuring continuity of care
- Engaging complex systems of support
4. Mental health and addictions
The ongoing thrum of background stress and uncertainty reverberates through the body and challenges one’s ability to cope. That background noise has revved up repeatedly over the past couple of years and even the sunniest of patients, caregivers and healthcare providers have been worn down. How do we shore them up in the face of these realities? How do we replenish and restore their equilibrium in a sustainable manner?
Topics of interest include:
- Supporting our own resiliency
- Provider and patient- dealing with the aftermath- PTSD, etc.
- Fully incorporating the quadruple aim
- Supporting Mental Health Promotion & Prevention