AFHTO has named eight innovators as winners of the organization’s annual Bright Lights Awards for their work in making meaningful improvements in patient health, how patients experience their care, and how efficiently healthcare resources are used. The awards recognize individuals for their leadership and for the work being conducted to improve the value of services delivered by primary care teams in Ontario. The winners were selected by a panel of judges from more than 60 nominations. The Bright Lights Award recipients are listed below. Click on the links to read a summary of each of their achievements. 1. Manitoulin Central Family Health Team Award category: Planning programs and fostering partnerships for healthier communities Achievement: Mobile Teleophthalmology Program – Successful implementation of innovative technology to conduct diabetic retinopathy screening in a rural location
2. Centre for Family Medicine Family Health Team Award category: Optimizing access to interprofessional teams Achievement: Obstetrical Clinic – Identified a real need for pre- and post-natal care in rural communities and put together an interprofessional team to run an obstetrical clinic
3. Couchiching Family Health Team Award category: Strengthening collaboration within the interprofessional team Achievement: School Success Program – Created partnership among parents, caregivers, healthcare providers and schools to ensure classroom success for children with mental, physical or behavioural difficulties
4. Mount Sinai Academic Family Health Team Award category: Measuring performance to foster improvement in comprehensive care Achievement: Healthy Living with Pain Program – Using best practices, put a program in place to identify opioid abuse and improve treatment
5. Clare Liddy and Erin Keely, Champlain Base eConsult Team, The Ottawa Hospital Academic Family Health Team Award category: Coordinating care to create better transitions Achievement: Online eConsult System – Created an online system that allows patients prompt access to specialists, now adopted across Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom
6. Cathy Faulds, London Family Health Team Award category: Leadership and governance in a changing environment Achievement: Engaging Patients with Online Communications – Dr. Faulds introduced an online communications initiative that allows patients to have a real relationship with their physicians and team members and offers them access to curated information about their health concerns
7. Couchiching Family Health Team Award category: Clinical innovations to address equity. Achievement: Digital Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Screening – Introduced a comprehensive, universal screening process that also allowed for demographic data collection
8. Espanola & Area Family Health Team; Powassan & Area Family Health Team; City of Lakes Family Health Team; Great Northern Family Health Team; East End Family Health Team; Temagami Family Health Team Special recognition for collaboration across interprofessional teams to foster improvement Achievement – Technology-based Falls Prevention Program – Collaborated to incorporate a falls risk assessment into the electronic medical records, along with links to prevention and education programs
All eight award winners will receive education grants from the Bright Lights sponsors – Boehringer-Ingelheim Inc. and Merck Canada Inc. This year the AFHTO Board also presented two awards. These awards recognize significant contributions to Ontario’s primary care teams: - Theresa Agnew, Angie Heydon, Adrianna Tetley Achievement – Earning a Commitment and Seeing It Through: Primary Care Compensation – Advocated for improved compensation for Ontario’s primary care teams, leading to the Government of Ontario’s commitment of $85 million over three years to ensure that they “can effectively recruit and retain qualified interprofessional staff in primary care settings.”
- Dr. Ross Baker Achievement – Primary Care Governance – Authored a groundbreaking study, which formed the basis for the toolkit and curriculum – Effective Governance for Quality in Primary Care – that AFHTO has used to train hundreds of primary care team board members over the past three years
The Bright Light Awards were presented during an awards dinner on the evening of October 17, as part of AFHTO’s 2016 Conference, “Leading Primary Care to Strengthen a Population-focused Health System.” The dinner was attended by more than 240 people including AFHTO members, senior representatives from government, key agencies and associations. The call for nominations for the 2017 Bright Light Awards will go out in June 2017. All AFHTO members are welcome and encouraged to participate. For additional event photos, please contact info@afhto.ca. [envira-gallery id="26353"]