Program Highlights

Donna Cripps
Biography 

• Donna Cripps, BSc (PT), MBA, CEO, Hamilton Niagara Haldimand Brant Local Health Integration Network
• Michel D. Landry, Bsc (PT), PhD, Chief of the Doctor of Physical Therapy Division, in the Department of Community and Family Medicine at Duke University Medical Centre in Durham North Carolina. Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Physical Therapy at the University of Toronto, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  
• Colin Preyra, PhD, CEO and Scientific Director of the Preyra Solutions Group and Affiliate Scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences
• Karima Velji, PhD, Vice President, Clinical and Residential Programs & Chief Nursing Executive, Baycrest
   

Dr. Samir K. Sinha, Director of Geriatrics at Mount Sinai and the University Health Network Hospitals in Toronto, is a passionate advocate for the needs of older persons.

Biography

1.

Strategies for Successful Implementation and Sustainability of Best Practices

• Heather Flett, MSc, BScPT, BA, Advanced Practice Leader in the Spinal Cord Rehabilitation Program at Toronto Rehab-University Health Network  Biography
• Jane Hsieh, MSc, Associate Scientist with the Lawson Health Research Institute and is the Implementation Science Lead with the SCI Research Program at St. Joseph’s Health Care London, Parkwood Hospital  Biography
• Jacquie Brown MES, RSW, Consultant with the National Implementation Research Network  Biography
• Anna Kras-Dupuis, RN, MScN, CNN(C), CRN(C) is a Clinical Nurse Specialist in the Rehabilitation Program at St. Joseph’s Health Care London Parkwood Hospital  Biography

Find out how your organization can implement change and best practices using systematic and rigorous methods based on the lessons learned from a 2½ year multi-site collaborative Knowledge Mobilization Network Initiative sponsored by the Ontario Neurotrauma Foundation, Rick Hansen Institute and Alberta Paraplegia Foundation.  

Our panel will describe the approach and the framework used to implement change and best practices using systematic and rigorous methods. While the project has focused on the spinal cord injury population, the framework and the learnings from the planning and implementation processes can be applied to other populations. 

The workshop will also engage members of the audience in a discussion on their efforts to implement best practices within their settings. Participants will achieve an increased understanding of the key evidence-based strategies required for successful implementation. 

2.

Disease Prevention:  Back in the Saddle Again

• Neil Seeman, CEO of the Health Strategy Innovation Cell  Biography

Explore how changing expectations and policy priorities over the next 1-3 years will affect clinicians’ interactions with their patients in rehab as changing corporate, political and patient-driven priorities come together to put disease prevention in the centre of the political radar.  

The coalescence of these forces is resulting in a new era for the disease prevention agenda that is changing what patients and caregivers expect from their healthcare system and in turn providing a window of opportunity for re-shaping healthcare policy and the healthcare system.

3.

How Accurately are you Measuring Functional Change in your Patient?

• Barb Ansley, RN, Manager of Research and Program Evaluation for the Rehabilitation/Senior’s program at Hamilton Health Sciences  Biography
• Susan Pettit, OT, Hamilton Health Sciences on the Complex Medical Rehabilitation Unit  Biography

Learn about the Assessment of Motor and Process Skills (AMPS), an observational measure that can help your team objectively measure the level of assistance that your patient requires to support independent living in the community. It can also measure whether your interventions are resulting in statistically significant functional change.  

The Assessment of Motor and Process Skills (AMPS) is an evidence-based tool that has been implemented with the complex medical rehabilitation patients at Hamilton Health Sciences. This tool allows the team to:

• Direct inpatient care for the best outcomes
• Predict the level of assistance needed in the community after discharge
• Measure statistically significant clinical change
• Support program evaluation
  
  

4.

An Ideal and Sustainable Rehab System – Update from the Rehab / CCC Expert Panel 

• Dr. Peter Nord, Co-Chair, Rehab / CCC Expert Panel, Chief Medical Officer and Chief of Staff at Providence Healthcare  Biography

Find out about the recent work of the Expert Panel and its recommendations for an innovative way to redefine the entire rehab system in Ontario. This includes moving away from the fragmented “bed funding” approach (with accountabilities around occupancy and patient-days) to a population-based system (with accountabilities around wait times and long-term outcomes).

Dr. Nord will provide an overview of the initiative, which has involved:

• development of full-continuum evidence-based best practice guidelines
• new definitions of rehab population groups
• metrics for defining the movement of individual patients along the full continuum according to a novel algorithm

He will also discuss the relationship between new funding models and the potential for facilitating and sustaining system improvements in the areas of quality and flow.