Best Practice Day 2004

Welcome to the post-conference web page of Best Practices Day 2004. This web page is designed to further promote the Best Practices Day objective of knowledge transfer and dissemination. A special thank you to presenters for their permission to share their presentations here.

Overview of Best Practices Day 2004
Conference presentations
Favourites and Feedback:
- Most innovative and useful practices
- People's Choice Awards
- Delegates reflections on the program
Sponsors
Planning Committee

Overview of Best Practices Day 2004

The fourth annual GTA Rehab Network Best Practices Day ~ Touching Transitions: Rehabilitation at the Crossroads of Care ~ was held on February 18, 2004 at the Inn on the Park in Toronto, Ontario.

With over 240 clinical, research and policy management professionals in attendance from across the Greater Toronto Area and beyond, it was a wonderful, successful day of information sharing, community building and learning.

Plenary sessions began with opening remarks by Ms. Tina Smith, Chair of the GTA Rehab Network. A stimulating keynote address followed by Dr. John Frank, Scientific Director of the Institutes for Population and Public Health at Canadian Institutes for Health Research. Concurrent sessions rounded out the morning and continued again after the lunch break. Later in the afternoon, delegates were treated to a panel in which four CEOs from healthcare organizations in the GTA offered recommendations for improving transitions in rehabilitation. This was followed by a plenary discussion by Dr. Cheryl Cott and Susan Jaglal on the results of the first-ever report card for rehabilitation.

Best Practices Day 2004 featured 15 outstanding podium presentations selected (using a blind-review process) from over 80 abstract submissions. For the first time ever, a People's Choice Award poster competition was held to recognize the best posters in the areas of research, innovation and knowledge transfer, as chosen by registrants of the conference. While only three posters could win a People's Choice Award, we would like to thank all poster submitters for helping to stimulate some great discussion.

Best Practices Day continues to be an opportunity for researchers, clinicians and policy and management professionals to meet and discuss issues that cross the traditional clinical practice/research boundary. With its 42 member organizations, the GTA Rehab Network is striving to be a potent catalyst for consensus-building, collaboration, coordination and communication in rehabilitation services, to the benefit of patients and providers.

To help you keep informed about, and be part of, the Network's progress, you may add your name to the e-mail distribution list of the bi-monthly newsletter. Thank you, and we hope to see you at next year's conference, as we continue to work together in building a model system of rehabilitation.

Conference Presentations

Many of the presentations made at Best Practices Day 2004 are available below for personal use only. No other use of the presentations is authorized without the explicit consent of the authors.

Favourites and Feedback

Most Innovative and Useful Practices

In evaluating Best Practices Day 2004, delegates were asked to name the three most innovative or useful practices/initiatives learned at the conference. With over 50 posters and 15 podium presentations to choose from, there was a large range of responses to this question. In fact, nearly all the podium presentations were cited at least once in delegates' responses to this question.

Presentation most frequently cited as innovative or useful:
The concept of thinking "Upstream" in the keynote address ~ Dr. John Frank
“The Effect of a Communication Skills Training Programme on Nurse-Patient Interactions in Complex Continuing Care” ~ Veronique Boscart*
“Best Practices in Rehabilitation Through a Joint Initiative on the Development of an Outpatient Satisfaction Survey” ~ Sarah Sharpe*
 “Improving Patient Care through Clinical Ethics Innovation: A Revitalized Ethics Program for an Academic Rehabilitation Centre” ~ Barbara Secker*

* first author listed only

Sponsors

The GTA Rehab Network gratefully acknowledges the following organizations, whose sponsorship helped to make the conference possible:

•   Howie, Sacks & Henry LLP
•   Toronto Rehabilitation Institute
•   Bridgepoint Health
•   Canadian Institute for Health Information
•   MED e-care
•   The Michener Institute
•   Orthopaedic and Arthritic Site of Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre
•   The Arthritis Society
  

  Planning Task Group

  The GTA Rehab Network gratefully acknowledges members of the Best Practices Day 2004 Planning Task Group:
  Dr. Gaetan Tardif, Director, Division of Physiatry, University of Toronto (task group chair)
  Ms. Cass Bayley, The Bayley Group Conference Management
  Ms. Susan Bisaillon, Trillium Health Centre
  Ms. Marie DiSotto-Monastero, St. John's Rehabilitation Hospital
  Dr. Gary Gerber, West Park Healthcare Centre
  Ms. Anne Hartford, Orthopaedic & Arthritic site of Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre
  Ms. Charissa Levy, GTA Rehab Network
  Ms. Tina Saryeddine, GTA Rehab Network
  Prof. Molly Verrier, Graduate Department of Rehabilitation Science, University of Toronto
  Dr. Jan Walker, West Park Healthcare Centre

  Special thanks to The Bayley Group, DotCom-Your-Event, Mr. Robert Jessop and Ms. Jana Green.