AFHTO has named the winners of our annual Bright Lights Awards. These innovators have improved primary care by making the most of their resources, strengthening interprofessional collaboration, and building strong partnerships beyond their walls. This has resulted in better patient outcomes, better access, and better experience of care. Review committees made up of AFHTO members selected the winners from more than 70 nominations. In addition to the awards in our seven conference themes, the AFHTO board presented a special award for Leadership in Public Health and Primary Care Collaboration to Windsor-Essex County Health Unit. They demonstrate a strong commitment to health promotion, working with FHTs, NPLCs and CHCs in their community to design coordinated, evidence-based programs and services.
The seven Bright Lights Award recipients are listed below. Click on the links to read a summary of each of their achievements.
1. West Durham FHT
Award category: Effective Leadership and Governance for System Transformation
Achievement: Leadership is not a title –Taking a proactive approach to change, adopting processes to ensure their leadership is skills-based, patient-centred and inclusive.
2. Belleville Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic
Award category: Planning Programs for Equitable Access to Care
Achievement: Primary Care Low Back Pain Pilot – Successfully implementing a new interprofessional approach to managing low back pain. This improved patient outcomes with less reliance on medications and fewer ER visits, and fortified collaboration both within the team and with other organizations
3. Leamington and Area Family Health Team
Award category: Employing and Empowering the Patient and Caregiver Perspective
Achievement: Changing the Culture Around Advance Care Planning – Breaking taboos through an education program for patients, caregivers, families and the community, destigmatizing conversations around end-of-life care.
4. St. Michael’s Hospital Academic Family Health Team
Award category: Strengthening Partnerships
Achievement: Health Justice Initiative– Implemented a multilevel program to address legal issues that present a barrier to better health, including providing onsite legal assistance for patients, educating staff and undertaking advocacy at the system level.
5. eHealth Centre of Excellence, Centre for Family Medicine Family Health Team
Award category: Optimizing Use of Resources
Achievement: Coordinated Access to All Services – Demonstrating leadership in digital health through the development and spread of a systemwide coordinated approach to access to a wide variety of care and services.
6. Thamesview, Tilbury District and Chatham Kent Family Health Teams
Award category: Using Data to Demonstrate Value and Improve Quality of Care
Achievement: Primary Care Impact on an Integrated Case Management Model for the Frequent User – Adopted an integrated case management model that improved the healthcare experience of individual patients with complex needs, simultaneously reducing ER visits and hospital admissions.
7. North York Family Team
Award category: Clinical Innovations for Specific Populations
Achievement: Multidisciplinary Approach To Deprescribe Sedative Hypnotics In The Elderly – Introduced a two-stage, interprofessional insomnia reduction program for older adults, resulting in improved mood and sleep quality, reduced anxiety and lower drug use.
The call for nominations for the 2018 Bright Light Awards will go out in June 2018. All AFHTO members are welcome and encouraged to participate. For additional event photos, please contact info@afhto.ca. [envira-gallery id="30971"]