Healthcare Management Forum最新文献

Healthcare worker wellness is foundational to delivering quality care. Yet, healthcare facilities often lack access to healthy and sustainable food overnight and on weekends. Healthy, low-carbon meals were provided free of charge after hours to on-call General Surgery residents at the University of British Columbia and the impact on resident well-being assessed using pre- and post-intervention surveys. Financial and time stress reduced significantly with the provision of meals (P's < .01), while emotional and physical stress levels did not change. Average meal expenses decreased from $33 to $10 (P < .001). Increasing food access on call is an impactful intervention to improve resident health and well-being.

Computers and applications of computers into our world have changed dramatically during the past five decades, from early days of minimal central processing unit capacity, limited memory and without advantage of global networking. In this article, the author highlights the application of predictive artificial intelligence in use globally over the last 40 years in process industries. It discusses the novel application of process automation and robotics in health clinical high-volume laboratory use that began as a Canadian innovation initiative and followed by similar innovation extending to other countries.

Climate change poses significant public health and health system challenges including increased demand for health services due to chronic and acute health impacts from vector-borne diseases, heat-related illness, and injury from severe weather. As climate change worsens, so do its effects on health systems such as increasing severity of weather extremes causing damage to healthcare infrastructure and interference with supply chains. Ironically, health sectors globally are significant contributors to climate change, generating an estimated 5% of global emissions. Achieving "net zero" health systems require large-scale change with shared decision-making to coordinate a pan-Canadian approach to creating climate-resilient and low-carbon healthcare. In this article, we discuss healthcare professionals' and health leaders' perceptions of responsibility for practicing and advocating for climate-resilient and low-carbon healthcare in Canada.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications in healthcare are evolving rapidly. The integration of AI into the Canadian healthcare system has demonstrated significant potential for enhancing the efficiency of care and improving patient outcomes. However, as this transformative technology continues to advance, it is crucial to take into account the unique perspectives and requirements of Indigenous Peoples in Canada. This article delves into the political, ethical, and practical considerations associated with introducing AI into Indigenous healthcare, emphasizing the paramount importance of equity and inclusion, which are rooted in the Two-Eyed AI framework. It also underscores the significance of co-creating AI technology in collaboration with Indigenous communities and multidisciplinary development teams. To illustrate these principles, this article spotlights an international AI epistemology-focused working group example. Healthcare professionals who engage with AI, whether it be through research, management, development, or leadership are implicated with this contemporary paradigm shift in decolonizing novel AI technology.

Workforce planning ensures that the health workforce is aligned with current and future population needs. Engagement with partners and knowledge users is a leading practice in planning and is essential for planning to be successful. The goal of this study was to explore the considerations and processes involved in integrating engagement into workforce planning. Through a case study of primary care workforce planning in Toronto, we address the role of engagement, how it can be integrated into planning, and how lessons from engagement support spread and scale of effective workforce planning. In the course of engagement with five Ontario Health Teams between September 2023 and February 2024, we learned that there is considerable enthusiasm for planning, but that support is needed, and that engagement guides investment and strengthens relationships. We offer guidance for leaders with respect to actualizing engagement and building capacity for health workforce planning across the health system.

Technology integration in the healthcare industry has resulted in unparalleled efficiency and accessibility to healthcare services. However, this digital transformation has also created new vulnerabilities, particularly in cyberattacks, which pose significant patient safety and privacy threats. To address this issue, healthcare providers must proactively safeguard patient data and mitigate cybersecurity risks. This includes implementing robust security protocols, adhering to established privacy regulations, and selecting digital health solutions from vendors prioritizing privacy and security. By doing so, the healthcare industry can ensure that patients' personal and personal health information remains private and secure while maintaining the efficiency and accessibility of healthcare services.

In the Long-Term Care (LTC) setting, comprehensive primary care is often provided by Nurse Practitioners (NPs). NPs are uniquely positioned to meet the evolving primary care needs of LTC residents. However, caring for this population requires additional education and training due to its special considerations. To meet the learning needs of NPs entering the LTC workplace, a Certificate Program was designed to enhance primary care competencies within the LTC setting. The aim of the program is to increase knowledge, capacity, and confidence of NPs to deliver quality, evidence-based, integrated, and interprofessional primary care to LTC residents. This curriculum is anticipated to address the growing need for LTC services and improve the delivery of high-quality primary care.

As Canadian policy-makers recognize the urgency for concerted actions to reduce plastics (e.g., Canada's involvement in the international plastics treaty negotiations, zero plastic waste strategy, and single-use plastics regulations), the healthcare sector must also consider a more sustainable plastics system. In this context, the potential for novel bioplastics to mitigate healthcare's substantial plastic waste problem must be carefully interrogated. Our analysis examines the complexities of bioplastics, highlighting the technical challenges of identifying legitimate sustainable alternatives, and the practical barriers for implementing bioplastics as substitutes for consumable plastics in healthcare. We focus on the Canadian healthcare sector and regulatory landscape with the insights gained being applicable to other sectors and countries. Given the limitations identified, the focus on reducing consumption should remain the priority.

Registered nurses' practice in primary care varies and is sometimes sub-optimal. To fill the gap in primary care-specific knowledge, we co-constructed a national educational program to reinforce the nursing workforce. We based our project on the knowledge-to-action approach. Many lessons were learned during the development phase: (1) The experiential knowledge of patient partners and stakeholders allows an education program based on real needs; (2) The development of a national education program requires high-intensity investment from all involved persons; (3) An in-person meeting at the beginning of the project enables robust discussions and optimal co-creation; and (4) In a country where two official languages are spoken, it's essential to create a safe environment and a translation infrastructure that allows everyone to express themselves in the language of their choice. Finally, other initiatives in healthcare education or professional practice improvement could leverage our findings to realize national-scale projects using knowledge creation approaches.

Emergency Department (ED) boarding crowds the emergency department, strains resources, leads to higher hospital costs, and is associated with increased morbidity/mortality, a negative patient experience, and patient adverse events. The time Ontario patients wait in emergency departments for inpatient beds continues to rise, with the average time admitted patients spend in the ED increasing between 2015 and 2019 from 13.8 hours to 16.2 hours. As reported in this quality improvement initiative, one potential solution is to repurpose short-stay medical assessment units for complex admitted medicine patients using an objective patient selection tool. Objectively selecting admitted ED patients with the highest risk for adverse events and prioritizing them to move to a transitional unit advances safe quality patient care and decreases Time-to-Inpatient Bed (TIB). Results from this quality improvement initiative include reducing the organization's TIB by 13 hours.