Healthcare quarterly (Toronto, Ont.)最新文献

Older adults overwhelmingly want to continue to age in place but would benefit from a community of support to do so. The Naturally Occurring Retirement Community (NORC) Ambassadors program - an initiative from University Health Network (UHN) OpenLab - uses a participatory approach to create sustainable, resident-led, aging-in-place groups in NORC buildings. NORC, which stands for Naturally Occurring Retirement Community, is a geographic designation used to describe an area, such as a building or a neighbourhood that has become home to a large number of older adults. Having a high concentration of older adults, NORCs are ideal settings for mobilizing communities and developing supportive networks. This article describes the creation and evaluation of the NORC Ambassadors program, which led to its inclusion as a foundational element of the model being implemented through the newly founded NORC Innovation Centre at the UHN.

Mental health and substance use have a long history of recurring cycles of reform across the globe. These reforms are often driven more by shifts in economic conditions, social ideologies, political climates and technological advancements than by design from within the fractionated mental health sector. Progress has been hindered by difficulty in fully conceptualizing the complex, multi-faceted nature of these issues, as well as by stigma, insufficient research and a lack of information. Additionally, there has been a dangerous complacency stemming from the misconception that these conditions are personal and/or moral failings.

The COVID-19 pandemic challenged the health workforce to respond to rapidly changing circumstances that demanded agility and endurance. As we emerged from those early years of the pandemic, we saw the aftermath of fatigue and waning resilience. The support of leaders is fundamental to the success of teams, especially in times of adversity and recovery. This perspective paper shares the early learnings from a rapid implementation of leadership supports to bolster team resilience across a local public health agency in Ontario. The Team Resilience Initiative aimed to strengthen participatory leadership capacities, psychological safety and team cohesion.

The 9-8-8: Suicide Crisis Helpline was launched in Canada in November 2023, aligned with an international movement to ensure access to crisis supports as part of a public health approach to suicide prevention. We describe the planning and implementation of 9-8-8 in Canada using the RE-AIM framework, considering the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation and Maintenance of 9-8-8 within the first six months of service (Glasgow et al. 2019). There is evidence of reach and adoption of 9-8-8 across Canada, and we discuss evidence-based strategies to evaluate and enhance effectiveness, implementation and maintenance. We also consider the importance of evaluating 9-8-8 within the larger socio-ecological and health system contexts. 9-8-8 must cultivate a learning health system approach and be part of a larger learning health system focused on reducing suicide in Canada.

Despite ongoing efforts to deliver more timely care to Canadians, patients across Canada continued to wait longer for joint replacements, cancer surgery and diagnostic imaging in 2023 compared with 2019 (the pre-pandemic period). In 2023, the wait time for cataract surgery returned to the pre-pandemic level. For radiation therapy and hip fracture repair, the proportion of patients treated within the benchmark decreased slightly compared to the pre-pandemic period.