Fraser Health’s Virtual Care (FHVC) service is supported by registered nurses who provide patient care and assistance through video conferencing, phone calls and messaging apps. Digital technology is used to assess patient health and provide medical advice and support to patients.
For Cheryl Hillman, registered nurse and member of the Fraser Health Virtual Care team, the opportunity to learn and grow in a new and evolving role in her profession has been invaluable.
“Virtual care provides a different model of patient interaction,” she explains. “This role allows me to spend more time with clients, which has been an incredible gift. Our team is focused on partnering with clients to problem-solve and also provide education and resources. It has been very empowering for nurses and clients.”
Every day, Cheryl sees first-hand the benefits virtual care provides to patients.
If an in-person visit with a health care provider isn’t possible or desired, Fraser Health Virtual Care – a service where patients can speak directly with a registered nurse who can provide health care assessments, make referrals to appropriate programs and provide general health care assistance through video conferencing, phone calls and messaging apps – can be the difference maker in ensuring a patient receives the care they need.
”Patients can ask all their questions and we can look up any resource. And we can address more than one concern per interaction.”
She also explains how the team can help support continuity between acute and community settings.
“All of our clinical conversations are documented in the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) to ensure the client’s other providers are able to see all the assessments and interventions we have performed.”
“Virtual care is beneficial for a variety of patients,” explains Cheryl. “This can include older adults, clients with mobility issues, people who live in remote areas, busy parents or workers who want to be able to connect through their device.”
“Sometimes people just need someone on the phone to talk things through with them. This can help prevent emergency department visits and provide peace of mind when people aren’t sure what to do.”
Looking ahead, Cheryl believes that providing health care virtually will provide much-needed care to individuals and communities in new and unique ways.
Sarah Rourke, clinical nurse specialist, shares Cheryl’s outlook on the future of virtual care. Working closely with clinical leaders, Sarah supports teams to integrate virtual health solutions into clinical practice. Through collaboration with Fraser Health Virtual Care and other teams, she is enabling the development of virtual care options across the health system by developing clinical practice resources, such as care standards.
Photo: Sarah Rourke, clinical nurse specialist
Sarah brings the higher-level systems and populations lens to ensure the clinical decision support tools necessary to provide care virtually are grounded in evidence and aligned with existing best practices and policies.
Sarah is not only involved in identifying and assessing how existing policies apply to virtual care, but also in advocating for policy change or new policies when she sees potential gaps.
“A lot of policies and regulations were written to support in-person care,” she explains. “So part of my role is to identify when there are opportunities for policy to better support how we provide care virtually.”
Her background as a registered nurse provides Sarah with a unique perspective in her system-level work.
“I often go back to the core things I learned as a nurse,” she says, “being a critical thinker and problem solver; focusing on the population we serve and integrating evidence into practice.”
When evaluating policies, she says, “I think about if I was a nurse impacted by this policy – how would this impact how I provide care? Are there any barriers I would face? And then I take these considerations forward so we can hopefully write good policies to better support staff in providing care. I am constantly trying to translate policy from paper to the real world.”
Sarah is particularly passionate about virtual care because she saw how much COVID-19 changed how people accessed health care. “It opened my eyes up to the possibilities of a new way of providing health care, and I was inspired to be a part of that change.”
VANCOUVER – Mayors and other leaders from several British Columbia communities say the provincial and federal governments need to take “immediate action” to tackle mental health and public safety issues that have reached crisis levels.
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim says it’s become “abundantly clear” that mental health and addiction issues and public safety have caused crises that are “gripping” Vancouver, and he and other politicians, First Nations leaders and law enforcement officials are pleading for federal and provincial help.
In a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier David Eby, mayors say there are “three critical fronts” that require action including “mandatory care” for people with severe mental health and addiction issues.
The letter says senior governments also need to bring in “meaningful bail reform” for repeat offenders, and the federal government must improve policing at Metro Vancouver ports to stop illicit drugs from coming in and stolen vehicles from being exported.
Sim says the “current system” has failed British Columbians, and the number of people dealing with severe mental health and addiction issues due to lack of proper care has “reached a critical point.”
Vancouver Police Chief Adam Palmer says repeat violent offenders are too often released on bail due to a “revolving door of justice,” and a new approach is needed to deal with mentally ill people who “pose a serious and immediate danger to themselves and others.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024
The Canadian government says it will donate up to 200,000 vaccine doses to fight the mpox outbreak in Congo and other African countries.
It says the donated doses of Imvamune will come from Canada’s existing supply and will not affect the country’s preparedness for mpox cases in this country.
Minister of Health Mark Holland says the donation “will help to protect those in the most affected regions of Africa and will help prevent further spread of the virus.”
Dr. Madhukar Pai, Canada research chair in epidemiology and global health, says although the donation is welcome, it is a very small portion of the estimated 10 million vaccine doses needed to control the outbreak.
Vaccine donations from wealthier countries have only recently started arriving in Africa, almost a month after the World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
A few days after the declaration in August, Global Affairs Canada announced a contribution of $1 million for mpox surveillance, diagnostic tools, research and community awareness in Africa.
On Thursday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said mpox is still on the rise and that testing rates are “insufficient” across the continent.
Jason Kindrachuk, Canada research chair in emerging viruses at the University of Manitoba, said donating vaccines, in addition to supporting surveillance and diagnostic tests, is “massively important.”
But Kindrachuk, who has worked on the ground in Congo during the epidemic, also said that the international response to the mpox outbreak is “better late than never (but) better never late.”
“It would have been fantastic for us globally to not be in this position by having provided doses a much, much longer time prior than when we are,” he said, noting that the outbreak of clade I mpox in Congo started in early 2023.
Clade II mpox, endemic in regions of West Africa, came to the world’s attention even earlier — in 2022 — as that strain of virus spread to other countries, including Canada.
Two doses are recommended for mpox vaccination, so the donation may only benefit 100,000 people, Pai said.
Pai questioned whether Canada is contributing enough, as the federal government hasn’t said what percentage of its mpox vaccine stockpile it is donating.
“Small donations are simply not going to help end this crisis. We need to show greater solidarity and support,” he said in an email.
“That is the biggest lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic — our collective safety is tied with that of other nations.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
