Our Team has joined the Geriatrics, Inter-professional Practice & Inter-organizational Collaborative (GiiC) Initiative.
We are working with the Regional Geriatrics Programs of Ontario and the Centre for Education & Research in Aging & Health at Lake Head University to develop our capacity to provide effective inter-professional and collaborative shared care for our elderly patients.
Population aging presents significant challenges to health care systems in Ontario. One of these challenges is that 43% of seniors have three or more chronic health conditions. This later group of seniorsis at rish of frailty, increased health system usage, loss of capacity for independent living and lowered quality of life.
Providing car to frail seniors requires expertise in three areas - geriatrics, inter-professional practice and inter-organizational collaboration, as follows: geriatrics since the clinical presentations of frail seniors are unique and complex; inter-professional practice as complex presentations require the resources of an inter-professional team; across many organizational boundaries from primary and community based care to emergency and hospital based services.
The initiative provides support and training to two of our nurse practitioners – Sarah Crichton and Helen Bosley and will offer the following benefits:
- Enhanced knowledge regarding the care of frail seniors,
- Ready access to practical clinical tools for seniors care in Family Health Teams and Community Health Centers,
- An internal resource on inter-professional practice and collaborative shared care,
- Ongoing support and mentoring from a team of GiiC resource consultants,
- Linkage with a network of :in-house" GiiC facilitators within Family Health Teams and Community Health Centers across the province and
- An opportunity to network with provincial geriatric resources.
This initiative is funded by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.