Elisabeth Antifeau & Marian Krawczyk THE CAREGIVER TOOLKIT: THE B.C. INTERIOR HEALTH AUTHORITY EXPERIENCE

 Over 742,000 residents of the Southern Interior B.C.  Large geographic area covering almost 216,000 square kilometres  Elisabeth Antifeau: Clinical Coordinator/Practice Lead, Special Populations, Community Integrated Health Services  15 Practice Leads in total, 3 per 5 portfolios: Community Care, Mental Health, Aboriginal Health, Promotion and Prevention and Primary Health/Chronic Disease Management  Responsible for system-wide planning  Beginning a ‘management independent’ planning process for horizontal integration – 1 st meeting March 27, 2012  Offer a series of workshops on the Caregiver Toolkit (in conjunction with other resources) INTERIOR HEALTH AUTHORITY: CONTEXT

Facing the same issues as many other health authorities:  Geographically large and diverse (challenging to meet)  Constraints financially, temporally and in professional capacity  “Siloing”: Vertical integration functional, lack of horizontal integration  Many practice alignment projects  Lack of complete community supports  Inappropriate and/or early residential care admissions  Enormous pressure to deflect and defer residential admissions  Large ALC population  Need consolidated care strategy across silos  Barrier for home discharge is caregiver burnout; in part due to system neglect HORIZONTAL INTEGRATION INITIATIVE

“Caregivers are important members of the care plan and health team”.  General discussion for generating ideas, networks and knowledge at:  Staff meetings  Workshops  Conferences  Clinical consults  Organization-Specific Knowledge Transfer  Between clinicians within discipline  Between clinicians across disciplines  Between clinicians and administrators  Between clinicians and caregivers WHY USE THE CGPL?

“We’re really looking for different resources we can apply across our system as we develop”.  To include caregiver voice, perspectives and needs  To build capacity  For developing initiatives in system redesign  To develop practice standards  To develop front-line case management  To identify the gaps  To identify opportunities to work together  To address the gaps to change outcome for clients and families  To look at commonalities and linkages, sharing experience and knowledge WHY USE THE CGPL?

“I see the CGPL as a tool to development of programs and policy, and the SPRG as central to the education of case managers”.  Four proposals currently in various stages of submission  Respite  Caregiver self-management  Post-discharge  Community nursing innovation PROJECTS & INITIATIVES

Horizontal integration (Practice)  Generate discussion  Knowledge transfer  Capacity-building  Facilitation of care planning across silos Patient-focused project initiatives for system redesign (Policy)  Program design and implementation  Need to ask:  “Is there a caregiver?”  “What is their role?”  “Do we have any indicators?”  To ‘profile’ caregivers using existing data to identify and begin to address gaps to change outcome for clients and families Future Research  To develop research questions  To ensure the perspective and needs of caregivers, not just clients  Evaluation PROJECTS & INITIATIVES

 Successes  Easy to use as a ‘reminder’ document  Challenges  Lack of time  Many competing initiatives  Lack of awareness of the importance of caregivers  Tips  Be patient  Use concrete examples BENEFITS, CHALLENGES & TIPS

 A series of webinar workshops (to be determined)  Goals of workshops:  To introduce and use three resources:  The Dementia Policy Lens (DPL),  The Seniors Mental Health Policy Lens (SMPL), and  The Caregiver Policy Lens (CGPL).  To facilitate Integrated Team’s ability to develop consistent practice standards across portfolios through horizontal integration initiatives and collaboration.  For more information:  Elisabeth Antifeau  Marian Krawczyk NEXT STEPS